posted on 2019-01-14, 17:04authored byChristian Sögaard, Isabelle Simonsson, Zareen Abbas
With the rapid development of nanotechnology,
there is urgent need
of characterizing techniques; especially determining the particle
size distribution directly from solution. Dynamic light scattering
is often used but presence of a small number of aggregates can greatly
influence the size distribution. Electrospray scanning mobility particle
sizer (ES–SMPS) is rapidly emerging as an alternative method
in colloidal science. However, a major limitation is the use of silica-coated
capillaries, which are negatively charged at pH > 3, and therefore
making its use difficult for positively charged nanoparticles. In
this work, we have developed the polyether ether ketone (PEEK)
capillary for ES–SMPS, which removes this limitation because
it carries no charge. We have shown that the new capillary not only
produced equally good particle size distributions for negatively charged
particles (SiO2, Au, and latex) as obtained with silica
capillaries, but also precise particle size distributions for positively
charged particles (TiO2). Moreover, the PEEK capillaries are much
cheaper than the silica capillaries. Thus, the results shown in this
paper strengthen the development of the ES–SMPS method as a
versatile method for determining the particle size distributions of
colloidal sols directly from solution.