The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has started to evaluate Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA), Nanosight's nanoparticle characterisation technology, in a programme that will last for a year.
The initial objective is a validation of NTA and a comparison with existing nanoparticle sizing techniques and standards.
The programme is a joint industry project, funded in part by the government.
Dr Alex Cuenat, nanomaterials group leader for NPL, said: 'What differentiates Nanosight from existing light scattering techniques is that it provides a direct view of the sample under analysis and rapid quantitative estimation of the sample size, size distribution and concentration.
'No method is truly universal.
'Most ensemble measurements are made using dynamic light scattering (DLS) or photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS).
'These methods are very fast, with thousands of particles analysed in a single second, but they cannot accurately analyse multi-modal (more than one size) dispersions or follow changes during analysis.
'Nanosight's NTA differs in that it measures particle speed instead of intensity of light scattered, which is what DLS does.
'This real-time capability to follow the Brownian motion of individual nano-particles leads to advantages over DLS.
'These include avoidance of a bias towards larger particles, which is driven by the latter's dependence on scatter intensity; an estimate of concentration, which Nanosight provides; and an image validating the results and providing additional insight.
'This investigation will look at precision and accuracy and assess the validity of the algorithms used in NTA in some depth.'
