'Old' technique reborn for nanoparticle size analysis with unparalleled resolution

Abstract

Differential centrifugal sedimentation is an extremely powerful tool for high resolution particle characterisation, especially in the size range 3 nm to 80 μm. It enables very narrow distributions of particles differing in size by less than 2% to be resolved, and hence extremely small differences, changes or shifts in particle size to be accurately and reproducibly detected and measured. Unlike most other particle sizing techniques, particles are actually separated and then measured, no predictive algorithms are used. Advances in instrumentation have overcome previous problems with the technique with respect to ease of use, speed of analysis, accuracy and multiple sample measurement. The technique works extremely well for characterising metal nanoparticles and offers fast, accurate and reproducible results every time for both narrow and very broad size range samples.