Gas-borne particles with tunable and highly controlled characteristics for nanotoxicology studies

For nanotoxicology investigations of air-borne particles to provide relevant results it is ever so important that the particle exposure of, for example cells, closely resembles the "real" exposure situation, that the dosimetry is well defined, and that the characteristics of the deposited nanoparticles are known in detail. By synthesizing the particles in the gas-phase and directly depositing them on lung cells the particle deposition conditions in the lung is closely mimicked. In this work we present a setup for generation of gas-borne nanoparticles of a variety of different materials with highly controlled and tunable particle characteristics, and demonstrate the method by generation of gold particles. Particle size, number concentration and mass of individual particles of the population are measured on-line by means of differential mobility analyzers (DMA) and an aerosol particle mass analyzer (APM), whereas primary particle size and internal structure are investigated by transmission electron microscopy. A method for estimating the surface area dose from the DMA-APM measurements is applied and we further demonstrate that for the setup used, a deposition time of around 1 h is needed for deposition onto cells in an air-liquid interface chamber, using electrostatic deposition, to reach a toxicological relevant surface area dose.