10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
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Correlating SMPS Size Distribution to spICP-MS Size Distribution for Flame Synthesized Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles
NATHAN REED, Sanmathi Chavalmane, Ramesh Raliya, Sungyoon Jung, Pratim Biswas, Washington University in St. Louis
Abstract Number: 436 Working Group: Instrumentation
Abstract Flame synthesized nanoparticles are an economically significant form of nanotechnology with growing potential [1]. Due to the broad application and commercial success of these particles as reinforcing agents (e.g., carbon blacks), pigments (e.g., titanium dioxide) and flowing aids (e.g., silicon dioxide), much attention has been paid to finely controlling their properties and translating these synthesis techniques to new materials and applications. A growing body of academic work elucidates efficient routes to attain shape-controlled and highly stable nanoparticles with narrow size distributions for applications including solar cells [2], catalysts, gas sensors [3], and agricultural fertilizers[4]. Because these applications rely heavily on the controlled physical properties of nanoparticles, it becomes increasingly important to accurately and reliably measure the size distribution and chemical composition of these nanoparticles during production. Single particle inductively coupled plasma- mass spectrometry (spICP-MS) is an emerging analytical technique that measures the chemical composition, number concentration, and size distribution of nanomaterials in suspensions and aerosols. This instrument’s sensitivity and dynamic range allows for improved characterization of polydisperse, aggregated, and agglomerated nanomaterials [5]. In this work, we synthesized titanium dioxide nanoparticles with geometric mean diameters ranging from 20 to 100 nm, using a flame aerosol reactor (FLAR). The nanoparticle size and extent of aggregation were characterized using transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. The size distribution of the flame synthesized titanium dioxide nanoparticles was then measured using a PerkinElmer NexION 2000 spICP-MS and a TSI Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) for comparison. For spherical non-aggregated nanoparticles, the spICP-MS and SMPS data closely matched; however, aggregated nanoparticle sizes were overestimated with SMPS. Our results show that spICP-MS can be effectively applied to size spherical flame synthesized nanoparticles, and even aggregated nanoparticles with a known fractal prefactor. Our results show that spICP-MS is effective for characterizing flame synthesized nanoparticle size distributions and is a complementary technique to SMPS.
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