Meng Fanxu, Ugaz Victor M
Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.
1] Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering [2] Department of Biomedical Engineering Texas A&M University College Station, Texas, U.S.A.
Sci Rep. 2015 Apr 29;5:9896. doi: 10.1038/srep09896.
High-throughput manufacturing of nanomaterial-based products demands robust online characterization and quality control tools capable of continuously probing the in-suspension state. But existing analytical techniques are challenging to deploy in production settings because they are primarily geared toward small-batch ex-situ operation in research laboratory environments. Here we introduce an approach that overcomes these limitations by exploiting surface complexation interactions that emerge when a micron-scale chemical discontinuity is established between suspended nanoparticles and a molecular tracer. The resulting fluorescence signature is easily detectable and embeds surprisingly rich information about composition, quantity, size, and morphology of nanoparticles in suspension independent of their agglomeration state. We show how this method can be straightforwardly applied to enable continuous sizing of commercial ZnO nanoparticles, and to instantaneously quantify the anatase and rutile composition of multicomponent TiO2 nanoparticle mixtures pertinent to photocatalysis and solar energy conversion.
基于纳米材料的产品的高通量制造需要强大的在线表征和质量控制工具，这些工具能够持续探测悬浮状态。但是现有的分析技术在生产环境中部署具有挑战性，因为它们主要适用于研究实验室环境中的小批量非原位操作。在这里，我们介绍一种方法，该方法通过利用悬浮纳米颗粒与分子示踪剂之间建立微米级化学不连续性时出现的表面络合相互作用来克服这些限制。由此产生的荧光信号易于检测，并且嵌入了关于悬浮纳米颗粒的组成、数量、尺寸和形态的惊人丰富信息，而与它们的团聚状态无关。我们展示了这种方法如何能够直接应用于实现商业氧化锌纳米颗粒的连续尺寸测量，以及即时量化与光催化和太阳能转换相关的多组分二氧化钛纳米颗粒混合物中的锐钛矿和金红石成分。
