Formation of Disperse Nanoparticles at the Oil/Water Interface in Normal Microemulsions

Abstract

An artificial oil/water interface was created in normal microemulsions. Various well-dispersed inorganic nanoparticles were successfully fabricated at this micelle interface, and a "hot liquid annealing" process was used to crystallize the products. Owing to the large solubility of the source materials in the water phase, the colloidal nanoparticles can easily be prepared on a large scale. Compared with traditional reverse-microemulsion methods, the method reported here yields larger amounts of colloidal particles but with the same quality.