The Department of Chemistry at the University of Warwick has selected the DC24000 from CPS Instruments to support its investigations in supracolloidal chemistry.
The Warwick team's research, led by associate professor of polymer chemistry, Dr Stefan A F Bon, is focusing on the synthesis of complex and functional colloidal building blocks into larger supracolloidal structures.
The technology behind the DC24000, differential centrifugal sedimentation (DCS), allows the group to investigate the particle-size distribution and population of polymer and inorganic colloids.
Data from the DC24000 provides key information to allow the design of novel routes for particle assembly into larger structures, gaining insight into how these processes work.
Applications of the fabrication of these structures include coatings and adhesives, food, agriculture, lab-on-a-chip devices and sensors.
The research group uses a range of characterisation techniques, including particle sizing by DCS, dynamic and static light scattering, particle tracking and microscopy techniques such as SEM/TEM and AFM.
The DC24000 delivers routine ultra-high-resolution analysis of nano-particle populations down to 2nm and differing in size by as little as two per cent.
Catheline Colard, Roberto Teixeira and Stefan Bon have published a paper in the ACS journal, Langmuir, entitled: 'Unraveling mechanistic events in solids-stabilized emulsion polymerization by monitoring the concentration of nanoparticles in the water phase'.
The paper describes how the CPS DC24000 showed 'exemplary reproducibility' when monitoring nano-particle concentrations, proving the instrument to be 'an invaluable tool for determining key features of the polymerisation process'.
Catheline Colard said: 'The amazing resolution of the CPS Disc Centrifuge allowed us to analyse nano-particle structures with very little size difference'.
Dr Stefan Bon added: 'The strength of the disc-centrifuge technique over other particle-sizing methods is that it can distinguish small differences in particle-size populations in a relative easy manner'.
