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Updated: May 8, 2026

Dispersion of Nanomaterials in Aqueous Media: Towards Protocol Optimization
Published on: December 25, 2017
Dispersion of nanoparticles: from organic solvents to polymer solutions
Van Son Nguyen1, Didier Rouxel, Brice Vincent
1Institut Jean Lamour, UMR CNRS 7198, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Université de Lorraine, 54506 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France.
Abstract:
This work is devoted to a systematic study of nanoparticle dispersion by ultrasonication in different solutions: from organic solvents to polymer solutions. The cluster size of nanoparticles at different concentrations in both organic solvents and polymer solutions were directly characterized by Dynamic Light Scattering to study the effect of solid concentration, surfactant and polymer on the dispersion. It reveals that in stabilized suspensions, the smallest attainable size or aggregate size of nanoparticles is independent of solvent type and solid content over the tested range. Furthermore, nanoparticles in simple solvent and in polymer solutions had the similar evolution of cluster size and almost the same final size, which could be very helpful to optimize the dispersion of nanofillers in polymer solutions and nanocomposites. It is also shown that, with appropriate sonication amplitudes, the dispersion procedure developed for very dilute suspensions could be transferred to higher concentration suspensions or even to polymer suspensions.
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