Core-Shell Engineering to Enhance the Spectral Stability of Heterogeneous Luminescent Nanofluids

The tendency to the miniaturization of devices and the peculiar properties of the nanoparticles have raised the interest of the scientific community in nanoscience. In particular, those systems consisting of nanoparticles dispersed in fluids, known as nanofluids, have made it possible to overcome many technological and scientific challenges, as they show extraordinary properties. In this work, the loss of the spectral stability in heterogeneous luminescent nanofluids is studied revealing the critical role played by the exchange of ions between different nanoparticles. Such ion exchange is favored by changes in the molecular properties of the solvent, making heterogeneous luminescent nanofluids highly unstable against temperature changes. This work demonstrates how both temporal and thermal stabilities of heterogeneous luminescent nanofluids can be substantially improved by core–shell engineering. This simultaneously avoids the leakage of luminescent ions and the effects of the solvent molecular changes. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim