The synthesis of plate-like silica particles, which are of importance for a variety of applications, are mainly based on the widely adopted method of the sol-gel reaction of silicon alkoxides in traditional batch-wise instrumentation. In this study, continuous-flow synthesis of amorphous plate-like silica particles is reported through combining droplet-based microfluidics and the sol-gel reaction of tetraethyl orthosilicate. The reaction was conducted at the surface of oil droplets, comprising tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), suspended in acidic (HCl) water, resulting in silica particles on the surface of the droplets, leaving the device with outlet flow. The synthesized particles had plate-like structure with thickness less than 1 μm and microscale in two other dimensions. The influences of experimental parameters (TEOS and HCl concentrations and the flow rate of aqueous phase) on the silica production rate were examined. With increase in the TEOS and HCl concentrations, the production rate increases monotonically. With increase in the flow rate of aqueous phase, the production rate increases up to a specific flow rate. Beyond the flow rate, the production rate decreases with increase in the flow rate. A phenomenological model is proposed to address the production rate using the droplet-based microfluidic system. In addition, response surface methodology (RSM) was used to statistically model and optimize the production rate. At optimum values for the experimental parameters, the experimentally measured production rate was considerably comparable to that predicted by RSM.

板状二氧化硅颗粒的合成对于各种应用都很重要，主要是基于传统分批仪器中广泛采用的烷氧基硅的溶胶-凝胶反应方法。在这项研究中，通过结合基于液滴的微流控技术和原硅酸四乙酯的溶胶-凝胶反应，报道了无定形板状二氧化硅颗粒的连续流合成。反应在悬浮于酸性（HCl）水中的包含正硅酸四乙酯（TEOS）的油滴表面上进行，在油滴表面上产生二氧化硅颗粒，使装置保持出口流动。合成的颗粒具有板状结构，其厚度小于1μm并且在其他两个维度上均为微米级。考察了实验参数（TEOS和HCl浓度以及水相流速）对二氧化硅产率的影响。随着TEOS和HCl浓度的增加，生产率单调增加。随着水相流量的增加，生产率增加到特定的流量。除了流速，生产率随着流速的增加而降低。提出了一种现象学模型，以解决基于液滴的微流体系统的生产率问题。此外，还使用响应面方法（RSM）进行统计建模和优化生产率。在最佳的实验参数值下，实验测得的生产率与RSM预测的相当。