Disintegration process of surface stabilized sol-gel TiO2 nanoparticles by population balances

Titanium oxide (TiO2) is one of the most useful oxide materials, because of its widespread applications in photocatalysis, solar energy conversion, sensors and optoelectronics. The control of particle size and monodispersity of TiO2 nanoparticles is a challenging task in processing. The control and prediction of these dynamics are based on the process conditions and the nature of chemicals. In this work, we investigate the effect on the surface stabilization with different surfactants and temperature. The steric stabilization of the polymer and various functional groups of dispersants are also considered. Narrow distributed spherical titania particles in the size range 10-100 nm are produced in a sol-gel synthesis from titanium tetra-isopropoxide. The influence of various precursor concentrations and different surfactants on the particle size distribution is investigated. The population balance model for disintegration leads to a system of integro-partial differential equations which is numerically solved by the cell average technique. The experimental results are also compared with the simulation using two different disintegration kernels.