You only get what you pay for!  Are low budget instruments worth what you pay for it?

“Nano” is one of the most attractive and modern terms in research, industry and marketing.

Due to the excellent definition work of the ISO committee TC229 since August 2008 there is a precise determination what “Nano” really means (ISO/TS27687). Also development in this field, as well as increasing knowledge is growing daily at an accelerating speed.

Only the size measurement…

According to the valid definitions in ISO/TS 27687: August 2008 and the standardl particle definitions in accordance with  ISO TC 24/SC 4,  TC 146 and TC 209 there is a clear definition of nano particles respectively nano objects. Only for these nano objects, where one, two or three external dimensions are in the nanometer range below 100nm, the term nano particles should be used.

All coarser particles are submicron particles and should not be called nano particles…

In relation with production and stabilization of  Nano-objects there is very often the talk about observing/ setting the right Zeta-potential. Also a lot of actual analytical instruments  promote Zeta-potential determination together with e.g. size determination.

But let us have a closer look to the use of Zeta-potential today and its value.

In research of specific structure analysis Zeta-potential measurement is irreplaceable for:

• Finding reasons for…

In my recent blog on this theme I stated:

These early instruments needed a very robust and simple calculation mode, the ‘2nd Cumulant’ method, for evaluation because the calculation power of the then available computers were still very limited. Still today this simplified calculation method is positioned in the related ISO 13321 framework. It generates as results a mean particle diameter and a value for the width of an assumed Gaussian distribution…