Manufacturing rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles with lasers

Rare earth metal oxides are valuable materials in many industrial applications. For instance, neodymium oxide is used in magnets, cerium oxide has applications in catalysis, and terbium oxide has many uses in electronics. However, traditional production methods require a great deal of energy and produce inconsistent particle sizes, making these compounds difficult to manufacture.

Dou et al. developed a method to produce rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles by irradiating a metal-organic framework — a crystal lattice composed of alternating metal oxides and organic linker struts — with a nanosecond pulsed laser. Their method can produce uniform nanoparticles for less energy when compared to traditional methods due to the short laser duration.

The laser creates focused pulses of extremely high temperatures that are absorbed by the metal-organic framework. The high energy produces metal oxides, and the structure of the framework keeps the particles uniform. The team successfully used this method to create Tb₂O₃ nanoparticles in a range of sizes and in two different crystal structures.

The researchers believe their method will become widely used in industry due to the ready availability of both the lasers and the metal-organic frameworks. In addition, the method allows nearly endless customization due to the wide range of different possible frameworks.

The team plans to experiment on different types of metal oxides and develop their technique for commercial use.

“Our next plan is to explore making more rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles by laser conversion of the corresponding metal-organic framework precursors,” said author Hexiang Deng. “Another goal is to perform a quality assessment of the materials with industrial criteria and search for practical applications in catalysts and functional additives.”

Source: “Laser driven conversion of MOFs to rare earth metal oxide nanoparticles,” by Xinyu Dou, Jin Liu, Xuan Gong, Haoqing Jiang, and Hexiang Deng, APL Materials (2022). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0085497 .