Microemulsion Preparative Methods (Overview)

This chapter provides a comprehensive review on the synthesis of various nanomaterials ranging from metal, semiconductor, magnetic to rare-earth-based nanoclusters using microemulsion methods. An exquisite control of particle size, uniformity, and shape of nanoparticles can be achieved using these methods. The properties and applications of such microemulsion-derived nanoparticles are reviewed. The most commonly employed reverse water-in-oil microemulsion-based synthesis of a variety of metallic (e.g., Au, Ag, Cu), quantum-dot (e.g., CdS, CdSe), magnetic (e.g., α-Fe₂O₃, Fe₃O₄), and oxide (e.g., SiO₂, TiO₂, CeO₂) nanoparticles are reviewed in detail. This chapter also describes diverse bimetallic (e.g., Pt-Ru, Pt-Co, Au-Pd, Au-Pt) and core-shell nanostructures fabricated through typical water-in-oil reverse microemulsion methods. Also reviewed in this chapter are silica-coated metal, semiconductor, and magnetic nanocomposites synthesized through reverse microemulsion methods. Specifically, the silica-coating of diverse as-synthesized hydrophilic or hydrophobic nanoparticles, including metal nanoparticles (e.g., Au@SiO₂), quantum dots (e.g., CdSe@SiO₂), rare-earth nanoclusters (e.g., NaYF₄@SiO₂), and magnetic nanoparticles (e.g., Fe₂O₃@SiO₂), are discussed. For biological applications, multifunctional nanoparticles possessing fluorescent, magnetic, and targeting functionalities could be designed through reverse microemulsion methods, and a few examples are delineated.