The interplay between monomer formation, nucleation and growth during colloidal nanoparticle synthesis

Wet chemical methods have demonstrated their unparalleled success to control the size and size distribution of colloidal nanoparticles. In a wet chemical nanoparticle synthesis, precursor reaction, nucleation and growth will occur, not subsequently but often concurrently. The three processes can thus strongly affect each other during the nucleation. Here mathematical models were used to simulate the rate of the concurrently occurring precursor reaction, nucleation and growth. For both the ‘hot-injection’ and ‘heat-up’ methods, the simulation has clearly revealed how the batch nanoparticle products be determined by the interplay of the three processes. The simulation shows that the competition between nucleation and growth determine the size, size distribution, and concentration of batch colloidal nanoparticles, where the dominance between the two can be varied by synthetic conditions. By comprehensively considering the interplay, the nanoparticle synthesis in solution can be much better understood, which benefits the fine design of the synthesis to make desired batch nanoparticles.