Liquid-Phase Synthesis of Multifunctional Nanomaterials: A Recent Update

The design of novel materials is a fundamental focal point of material science research. Nanomaterials less than 100 nm in size have attracted significant interest over several decades due to their unique properties led by surface effect and finite size effect. Colloidal chemistry plays a key role in the controlled production of different classes of nanoparticles, thus being a subject of growing interest in several fields of materials, inorganic, physical chemistry, biophysics, and biomedical. Therefore, in this chapter, we sought to present an introductory outline of liquid-phase synthesis, nucleation, and growth mechanism of nanomaterials focusing on the magnetic nanoparticles. As per the broadness of this book, special attention was devoted to nanoparticles based on iron oxide and rare earth compounds, due to their rapid flourishing importance in biomedical field. Therefore, the work presents ideas involved in the most commonly applied methodologies for the liquid-phase synthesis of nanoparticles, such as co-precipitations and hydro/solvothermal techniques, as well as precipitations into nanoreactors based on reverse microemulsions, with a brief survey of the main advances in these fields in recent years. We have thoroughly presented the synthesis routes of several hybrid nanostructures such as magnetic silica/carbon, magnetic luminescence, magneto-plasmonics, and others. At last, the importance of surface modification and further bio-conjugation has been discussed.