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Show THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH RESEARCH POSTERS ON THE HILL 2013 The Advancement of an Automated Extruder to Aid Nanoparticle Synthesis Trevor Tanner and Agnes Ostafin Nano Institute of Utah u THE UNIVERSITY OE UTAH Nanotechnology has experienced a massive transformation in the last 50 years. Today nanoparticles are seen in a range of revolutionary products from super-hydrophobic coatings to solar panels. Unfortunately, the development of nano-products is often slow due to nanoparticle synthesis being extremely time consuming and sensitive. In this research w e demonstrate the potential of a completely automated system to significantly reduce the human labor required for one of the most popular nanoparticle synthesis techniques, particle extrusion. THE ADVANCEMENT OF AN AUTOMATED EXTRUDER TO AID NANOPARTICLE SYNTHESIS Trevor Tanner (Agnes Ostafin) Nano Institute of Utah Department of Material Science & Engineering University of Utah Nanotechnology has experienced a massive transformation in the past 50 years. Today nanoparticles are seen in a range of revolutionary products from super-hydrophobic coatings to solar panel applications. Unfortunately, the development of nano-products is often slow due to nanoparticle s ynthesis being extremely time consuming and sensitive. In this research, I demonstrate the potential of a completely automated computer controlled system to significantly reduce the human labor required for particle extrusion, one of the most popular nanoparticle synthesis techniques. Extrusion often consumes many hours of labor since nanoparticle formulations can require as many as 20 or more extrusions. Since each extrusion requires human monitoring and intervention, the nanoparticle solutions are constantly at risk of contamination and fluid loss between extrusion steps. In addition, extruders designed for lab use have extremely small chambers, with larger volumes being on the order of 1 OOmL. This is a major problem if bulk manufacture of a consistent solution is desired. To better facilitate bulk production, reservoir tanks permitting capture of 500 mL of liquid have been incorporated into the n e w extruder's design. A high pressure sensor is used in conjunction with an Arduino microcontroller to drive four high-pressure A S C O valves rated up to 1500 psi. An LCD screen displays the system's current status while user interactivity is facilitated through two external buttons. While the device has been constructed, final investigations remain to compare the automatic extruder against a traditional manual extruder and an alternative synthesis technique, such as sonifkation, to verify the automatic extruder is as good or better than both in producing uniform particles. If successful, the automatic extruder could potentially increase the productivity of researchers while providing more consistent and reliable extrusions. NANO INSTITUTE OF UTAH ! I" • - macMaioecefhtfofrarTmwhimaymairr clew of liquid j. \sSsS^ss^SssS |