Direct preparation of two-dimensional platelets from polymers enabled by accelerated seed formation

Laihui Xiao; Tianlai Xia; Jian Zhang; Sam J. Parkinson; Julia Y. Rho; Andrew P. Dove; Rachel K. O’ Reilly

doi:10.1038/s44160-025-00767-x

Direct preparation of two-dimensional platelets from polymers enabled by accelerated seed formation

Laihui Xiao, Tianlai Xia, Jian Zhang, Sam J. Parkinson, Julia Y. Rho, Andrew P. Dove, Rachel K. O’ Reilly

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) presents a facile method toaccess well-defined nanostructures. However, nanostructure preparationvia CDSA has been constrained by prolonged processing time andlimited throughput, primarily due to seed preparation and confinementto small batch scales. In turn, this limits the potential to scale up CDSAto enable application of the resultant particles. Here we report a rapidseed preparation method that drives uniform seed micelle formation bysupersaturating polymer solutions in a flow system. This leads to a largereduction in processing time, from a week down to minutes. Importantly,the modular flow cascade applied can integrate both seed preparation andliving CDSA, enabling end-to-end production of nanostructures directlyfrom polymers in 3 min. The attained throughput of 132 mg h−1 surpassesthat of other reported methods by orders of magnitude and, in turn,provides a step forward for the scaling-up of precision nanomaterials.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	808-815
Number of pages	8
Journal	Nature Synthesis
Volume	4
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00767-x
Publication status	Published - 14 Mar 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Funding

We thank the University of Birmingham and China Scholarship Council for funding and support.

Funders	Funder number
University of Birmingham
China Scholarship Council

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10.1038/s44160-025-00767-xLicence: CC BY 4.0

Direct preparation of two-dimensional platelets from polymers enabled by accelerated seed formation
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Final published version, 1.54 MBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "Crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA) presents a facile method toaccess well-defined nanostructures. However, nanostructure preparationvia CDSA has been constrained by prolonged processing time andlimited throughput, primarily due to seed preparation and confinementto small batch scales. In turn, this limits the potential to scale up CDSAto enable application of the resultant particles. Here we report a rapidseed preparation method that drives uniform seed micelle formation bysupersaturating polymer solutions in a flow system. This leads to a largereduction in processing time, from a week down to minutes. Importantly,the modular flow cascade applied can integrate both seed preparation andliving CDSA, enabling end-to-end production of nanostructures directlyfrom polymers in 3 min. The attained throughput of 132 mg h−1 surpassesthat of other reported methods by orders of magnitude and, in turn,provides a step forward for the scaling-up of precision nanomaterials.",

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Direct preparation of two-dimensional platelets from polymers enabled by accelerated seed formation

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