Optofluidic force induction as a process analytical technology

Manufacturers of nanoparticle-based products rely on detailed information about critical process parameters, such as particle size and size distributions, concentration, and material composition, which directly reflect the quality of the final product. These process parameters are often obtained using offline characterization techniques that cannot provide the temporal resolution to detect dynamic changes in particle ensembles during a production process. To overcome this deficiency, we have recently introduced Optofluidic Force Induction (OF2i) for optical real-time counting with single particle sensitivity and high throughput. In this paper, we apply OF2i to highly polydisperse and multi modal particle systems, where we also monitor evolutionary processes over large time scales. For oil-in-water emulsions we detect in real time the transition between high-pressure homogenization states. For silicon carbide nanoparticles, we exploit the dynamic OF2i measurement capabilities to introduce a novel process feedback parameter based on the dissociation of particle agglomerates. Our results demonstrate that OF2i provides a versatile workbench for process feedback in a wide range of applications.