Kinetics of the growth of anthracene nanoparticles

Nanocrystals of anthracene were formed by solvent shifting -reducing the solute solubility by changing the ratio of two components of a binary solvent. Dispersions of slowly-growing nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 100 to 1000nm were prepared in an acetone/water binary solvent. A model of the growth was developed that described the rapid initial increase in particle size over several minutes, followed by much slower growth over several hours to days. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements of particle size could be described well using this model. UV-VIS and fluorescence spectra suggest that the anthracene particles are crystalline, and exist in equilibrium with molecular anthracene in solution.