Patent ID: 9308585
Filing Date: 2016-04-12
CPC Classification: B22F,B33Y,B82Y

Claim Text:
1. A method of forming metal particles comprising: forming an aerosol stream comprising an inert carrier gas, one or more precursor compounds and a chemical agent that produces reducing gases upon thermal decomposition, wherein each of the one or more precursor compounds comprises one or more metals, wherein the aerosol stream comprises a solid concentration ranging from about 0.01% to about 50% by volume; and flowing the aerosol stream through a heated inert atmosphere in a reduction expansion synthesis (RES) reactor to form a plurality of zero valent metal particles corresponding to the one or more metals of the one or more precursor compounds, wherein a temperature of the heated inert atmosphere in the RES reactor is sufficient to thermally decompose the chemical agent to produce the reducing gas, and wherein the plurality of zero valent metal particles include hollow sphere particles having a diameter ranging from about 10 nm to about 10,000 nm and pores in the order of about 1% to about 80% of the size of the hollow sphere particles.