Promethean wins award for nanoparticles solution
Nanomaterials developer Promethean Particles has won an Institute of Physics Business Innovation award for developing a way to use supercritical fluids for large-scale production of nanoparticles.
Promethean said its research focused on developing and scaling continuous hydrothermal synthesis (CHS) to manufacture nanomaterials. While the process has been long hindered by blockages caused by mixing fluids with different physical properties, according to the group, CHS “combines an aqueous metal salt solution with a superheated water stream to create nanoparticles suitable for a wide range of applications”.
To overcome the problem of blockages, Promethean said in a statement describing the process, researchers at the University of Nottingham, UK, “pioneered the use of pseudo-fluid modeling to understand the nature of the mixing inside the reactor”. This was said to be a “radical move” because it “used dyed sugar water and methanol inside Perspex reactors to understand the issues inside a high pressure high temperature steel reactor.”
Promethean worked with the university to scale the process to a 1000 ton per year plant in Nottingham, where they will now manufacture nanomaterials.
“We have overcome a key challenge relating to fluid mechanics that allows continuous hydrothermal synthesis to become a viable process and one that is now a true alternative to other production methods,” said Ed Lester, Promethean technical director. “We are able to make some the world’s most sophisticated nanomaterials one hundred times cheaper than competitors using a sustainable platform technology.”
