US Patent 7736553 - Nanoparticle desublimation via electrostatic charging

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7736553.html

This patent from BASF AG teaches using electrostatic charging of nanoparticles during fabrication in order to prevent the agglomeration of the nanoparticles which makes uniform distribution in a composite difficult. Claim 1 reads:

1. A process for producing nanoparticles, comprising the following steps:

i) bringing a base substance into the gas phase,

ii) generating particles by cooling or reacting the gaseous base substance, and

iii) applying electrical charge to the particles during particle generation in step ii) in a nanoparticle generation apparatus.