Description:
Reference #: 01393
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for synthesis of metal oxynitrides.
Background:
Current synthesis methods for metal oxynitrides are often time consuming, non- industrially scalable, and occur in not well controlled environments. Flame spray pyrolysis has been shown to be a viable method of synthesizing metal oxynitrides. Flame synthesis is well known as a fast, industrially scalable technique in literature. Different aspects of the flame environment can be controlled including the temperature, the surrounding gas composition, the flame size, and the stoichiometric ratio of the flame.
Invention Description:
Metal oxynitride particles have multiple applications including in ceramics, photocatalysis, and pigments. A flame spray pyrolysis technique is used to synthesize metal oxynitride particles in a flame for the first time. This synthesis process requires much less time than previous synthesis methods and occurs in a well-controlled environment. The synthesis process described can be applied to different metal precursors.
Potential Applications:
We anticipate that this synthesis method could be incorporated into industries utilizing ceramics, pigments, and photocatalysis. Accordingly, this technology may be of potential interest to companies with customer bases of thousands to tens of thousands, although the exact number of potential customers is difficult to gauge.
Advantages and Benefits:
This invention proposes using flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) for the first time to form metal oxynitrides in a controlled flame environment in much less time than both the combustion and ammonolysis methods. Flame synthesis also has the potential to achieve better incorporation of nitrogen atoms into the oxide structure due to the high homogeneity of flame made particles and allow one to control the reaction environment. In FSP, all precursors are dissolved into an organic solvent and sprayed into a flame where the solution is ignited. Particle formation occurs on the order of milliseconds in the flame so the thermodynamic formations and high homogeneity present in the liquid solution are typically transferred to the final product particles. FSP has also been proven to be a viable for industrial scale synthesis, so large quantities of metal oxynitrides could be produced in a reasonable time.