| Description |
A novel mechanochemical milling technique, homogeneous media milling (HMM) is used to generate copious nanoparticles from a metal, parent media. Through the addition of surface-active capping agents, this method removes material from inch-scale parent material, via spallation and abrasion, resulting in gram-scale quantities of nanoparticles. Based on the principal of lowering a materials surface free energy through the chemisorption of a liquid or gaseous reagent, ductile and malleable metals can now be effectively and efficiently reduced to the nano scale. Acetonitrile was discovered to be an exceptionally good reagent for producing active aluminum nanoparticles, and oleic acid could be used to subsequently functionalize the particle surface, rendering them air-stable and hydrocarbon-fuel dispersible. In the interest of generality this process was used to make iron and copper nanoparticles via a similar method. It was discovered that acetonitrile decomposes on the surface of aluminum during HMM, resulting in the liberation of methyl group and hydrogen, which was detected as H2, CH4, and C2H6 in the headspace of the milling jar. Ammonia and methylamine, in gaseous form, are also reported to be highly effective surface-active milling agents for the production of aluminum nanoparticles. Methylamine, in particular, produced active, pyrophoric nanoparticles. For both acetonitrile and methylamine evidence of a stable surface adduct can be detected post milling using X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy. |
