Determination of the size distribution of non-spherical nanoparticles by electric birefringence-based methods
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Arenas-Guerrero, Paloma; Delgado Mora, Ángel Vicente; Donovan, Kevin J.; Scott, Kenneth; Bellini, Tommaso; Mantegazza, Francesco; Jiménez Olivares, María LuisaEditorial
Springer Nature
Date
2018-06-22Referencia bibliográfica
Arenas-Guerrero, Paloma; et. al. Determination of the size distribution of non-spherical nanoparticles by electric birefringence-based methods. Scientific Reports (2018) 8:9502 [DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-27840-0]
Sponsorship
Financial support of this investigation by Junta de Andalucía, Spain (grant No. PE2012-FQM0694) and University of Granada (Program “Proyectos de investigación precompetitivos”) is gratefully acknowledged.Abstract
The in situ determination of the size distribution of dispersed non-spherical nanoparticles is an essential
characterization tool for the investigation and use of colloidal suspensions. In this work, we test a size
characterization method based on the measurement of the transient behaviour of the birefringence
induced in the dispersions by pulsed electric fields. The specific shape of such relaxations depends on the
distribution of the rotational diffusion coefficient of the suspended particles. We analyse the measured
transient birefringence with three approaches: the stretched-exponential, Watson-Jennings, and multiexponential
methods. These are applied to six different types of rod-like and planar particles: PTFE
rods, goethite needles, single- and double-walled carbon nanotubes, sodium montmorillonite particles
and gibbsite platelets. The results are compared to electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering
measurements. The methods here considered provide good or excellent results in all cases, proving that
the analysis of the transient birefringence is a powerful tool to obtain complete size distributions of
non-spherical particles in suspension.