Reverse Micelle Nanocrystal Synthesis (2D)

Water-in-oil microemulsions confine dissolved reactants inside nanometre-scale surfactant droplets that act as individual nanoreactors. This 2D simulator renders a flat cross-section of the oil-phase reactor full of such droplets: they diffuse via Brownian motion, collide, and — with a probability set by the inter-micelle exchange rate — transiently coalesce to swap their aqueous contents. When a metal-salt droplet exchanges with a reducing-agent droplet, a nanocrystal nucleates and keeps growing as further droplets donate monomer, capped by the confinement volume set by the water-to-surfactant ratio w0. Four controls — w0, exchange rate, reactant concentration and temperature — drive live readouts of crystal count, mean diameter and size polydispersity, showing exactly how microemulsion chemists dial in nanocrystal size distributions. Drag to pan and scroll or pinch to zoom around the reactor.