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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Dispersion of Nanomaterials in Aqueous Media: Towards Protocol Optimization
Published on: December 25, 2017
Preparation and characterization of particles with small differences in polydispersity
H J Schöpe1, O Marnette, W van Megen
1Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Staudingerweg 7, D-55128 Mainz, Germany. jschoepe@uni-mainz.de
Abstract:
Colloidal particles are widely used both in fundamental research and in materials science. One important parameter influencing the physical properties of colloidal materials is the particle size distribution (polydispersity) of the colloidal particles. Recent work on colloidal crystallization has demonstrated that even subtle changes in polydispersity can have significant effects. In this study we present centrifugation techniques for subtly manipulating the width and the shape of the particle size distribution, for polydispersities less than 10%. We use scanning electron microscopy as well as dynamic and static light scattering to characterize the particle size distributions. We compare the results and highlight the difficulties associated with the determination of accurate particle size distributions.
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