Department Process Engineering
Particle Laboratory
Particulate contaminants, including engineered and incidental nanoparticles (NPs), colloids, and micro- and nanoplastics, enter aquatic environments (both engineered and natural) via numerous pathways. While some of these contaminants pose less of a threat due to their limited impact on ecosystems (e.g., clay minerals), others are of greater concern because they can have long-term, negative effects on environmental health (e.g., toxic metals sorbed to iron colloids, carbon nanotubes, and microplastics). The unintentional release or natural (geogenic) introduction of these particles into water systems is difficult to quantify, largely due to the lack of suitable analytical techniques to detect and characterize these materials in the environment. The Particle Lab is equipped with cutting-edge instrumentation to collaborate with and support researchers in characterizing particulate contaminants at the individual particle level.
The following infrastructure is available for that purpose:
Particle (size) analysis:
- Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) Analyzer (Zetasizer, NanoZS, Malvern)
- Laser Diffraction Particle Size Analyzer (LS 13 320, Beckman Coulter)
- Asymmetric flow field flow fractionation system (Eclipse, Wyatt) in-line coupled to UV-DAD detector, DLS - detector, static light scattering (SLS) detector (Helios, Waytt) and a fraction collector.
- Visible light microscope (VHX-7000, Keyence)
- Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy - Focal plain array (FPA)-µ-FT-IR microscope (Cary 670-IR, FTIR, Cary 610 IR Mikroskop)
- Electron microscopes
- Scanning electron microscope (Gemini 460, equipped with 2 EDX detectors (Extreme and Ultrmate, Oxford) Zeiss). Shared with and operated by Empa
- Transmission electron microscope (Talos, FEI and HD2700Cs, Hitachi). Both instruments are operated by ScopeM (access via user training).
TEM grid calculator:
To estimate optimal particle coverage on TEM grids for individual particle analysi of (automated) electron microscopy, we have developed the following two tools:
