ABSTRACT
Nanoparticles have been produced from many different materials and may take many different forms, including platelets (e.g., nanoclays and graphene), rods (e.g., carbon nanotubes and metal oxide nanofibers) and isometric particles (e.g., colloidal metals and metal nitrides). Although it is often convenient to focus on the dimensions of such structures as being the primary characteristic, in reality, it is likely that many other factors will also play a critical role. In materials science, properties are dependent upon structure and structure is depend upon processing, such that the crystallinity, impurity levels, surface structure, morphology, surface chemistry, amongst others, are all likely to influence the properties of nanoparticulate systems and, hence, the behavior of nanocomposites produced using them. This chapter provides
a brief overview of various nanoparticle synthesis routes, both to illustrate the range of different procedures that can be used and to highlight how processing affects the final products.
