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Liquid metal is increasingly attracting attention because of the fluidity properties and the electrical and thermal conductivity of metals. However, the preparation of stable liquid metal nanoparticles (LM NPs) is facing a great challenge. Liquid metal is prone to be oxidized when exposed to water and air. Because of the high density and surface tension, liquid metal tends to aggregate and precipitate. To address this challenge, we have developed a grinding technology that not only produces LM NPs with a narrower size distribution but also has high production efficiency and high concentration (more than 10 wt.%). A new polymer was synthesized to reduce the particle size and stabilize the NPs during the grinding process. The LM NPs stabilized with comb-like polymer have a smaller diameter of about 120 nm in deionized water and 80 nm in propylene glycol methyl ether (PM), which can maintain relative stability for a period of >90 days. The high concentration LM NPs play an important role in the fields of electronic product cooling, biomedicine, tissue engineering, intelligent hardware, 3 D printing, flexible electronics, artificial intelligence, aerospace, and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liquid metals show unparalleled advantages in printable circuits, flexible wear, drug carriers, and electromagnetic shielding. However, the efficient and large-scale preparation of liquid metal nanodroplets (LM NDs) remains a significant challenge. Here, we propose a simple and efficient method for the large-scale preparation of stable eutectic gallium indium nanodroplets (EGaIn NDs). We compared different preparation methods and found that droplets with smaller particle sizes could quickly be produced using a shaking technique. The size of EGaIn NDs produced using this technique can reach 200 nm in 30 min and 100 nm in 240 min. Benefiting from the simple method, various surfactants can directly modify the surface of the EGaIn NDs to stabilize the prepared droplets. In addition, we discovered that shaking in an ice bath produced spherical nanodroplets, and after shaking for 30 min in a non-ice bath, rod-shaped gallium oxide hydroxide (GaOOH) appeared. Furthermore, the EGaIn NDs we produced have excellent stability—after storage at room temperature for 30 days, the particle size and morphology change little. The excellent stability of the produced EGaIn NDs provides a wider application of liquid metals in the fields of drug delivery, electromagnetic shielding, conductive inks, printed circuits, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]