Nanoparticle in liquid sizing apparatus

Tender description

Specification: Nanoparticle in Liquid Sizing Apparatus Technical requirements: The equipment must be capable of sizing nanoparticle (NP) suspensions in liquid media. The liquid media of interest will generally be water-based but may include mimics of biological solutions, for example Phosphate-Buffered Saline solution. In addition, the compatibility of the equipment with some oily-based media would be advantageous, since some planned work focuses on nanoparticles used in products such as skin creams. The equipment should be able to handle a range of types of nano-sized particles/objects, including metals/metal oxides, polystyrene latex spheres, and proteins. The sizing ability of the instrument should range from ~20 nm up to ~ 1 micron, since NP can often aggregate and the study of this is fundamental to our work. The detection of particles under 20 nm would be advantageous. The equipment must be able to resolve multimodal size distributions. Resolution of a diameter ratio of 2:1 or better is desired. The ability to analyse fluorescent samples e.g. quantum dots is desired. Compatibility with a wide range of emission wavelengths would be an advantage. The equipment must be able to have its sample vial/chamber easily cleaned or replaced to rule out contamination. Both ease of replacement/cleaning, and cost of consumables will be considered. The equipment must be easy to operate, and an experimental run (including sample prep, results collation/analysis etc) should be relatively fast (certainly measurable in minutes).