The overall objective of this project is to develop an infrastructure for synthesizing and characterizing nanoparticles (NPs) and nanomaterials (NMs) for applications in a wide range of areas, including sensing and catalysis that will be investigated here.

The rational behind the development of an infrastructure for synthesizing NPs and versatile NMs is to boost scientific research and development in the field of nanotechnology, both at national and international level, by providing novel solutions for addressing current and future challenges. Under this project, focus will be given in applications in the Environment and Energy sector, which is a key priority of the S3Cy.

The infrastructure will employ novel tools for synthesizing NPs and NMs in the gas phase that have numerous advantages both for meeting research needs, but also because they can be easily scaled up to cover industrial demands. Compared to traditional wet-chemistry methods, gas-phase NP synthesis techniques have the advantage that i) they are environmentally-friendly since they do not require precursor compounds and do not produce waste streams, ii) they are continuous process with high repeatability that can be easily incorporated in industrial processes, and iii) can be easily combined with state-of-the-art additive manufacturing (i.e., 3D printing) techniques to yield novel materials. From the research viewpoint, the greatest advantage of gas-phase synthesis is that it can produce NPs that are extremely pure and surfactant-free. This is important both for research purposes but also for various applications of the NPs/NMs in commercial products where purity is a crucial factor.