Insights shared by Particle Characterization Laboratories director William Bernt highlights the impact of adding a Malvern NanoSight nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) system to the toolkit for nanoparticles.
Particle Characterization Laboratories is a well-established expert provider of nanoparticle and microparticle characterisation services, with expertise in the measurement of liposomes and exosomes.
Mr Bernt said: "The individual particle-by-particle size and concentration measurement delivered by NTA reveals highly relevant information that other techniques simply can’t access.
"Of all the submicron sizing instruments we have it’s our ‘go to’ analyser.
"Because NTA gives number-based size distributions, the results aren’t skewed by the presence of a few large particles or compromised by extracellular debris.
"And the ability to physically examine the sample means that you can be confident of knowing exactly what is being measured.
"Additionally, the capacity of the NanoSight to report particle concentration makes it a critically important tool in clinical research."
Particle Characterization Laboratories provides the industrial, academic and government research communities with particle size, concentration, molecular weight, zeta potential measurement and dynamic image analysis services.
The techniques applied include dynamic and static light scattering, laser diffraction particle sizing using a Malvern Mastersizer, disc centrifuge photo sedimentography, dynamic image analysis, scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy.
Liposome, exosome and protein characterisation for drug delivery and formulation applications is an important area of work. The company also analyses a wide range of industrial samples, including colloidal gold and silver sols, latexes, inks and pigments, as well as industrial polishing agents.
Mr Bernt said: "Customers typically come to our lab looking for dynamic light scattering (DLS), which is a well-established, useful nanoparticle sizing method.
"But NTA and DLS are complementary to one another so I’ll often add NTA into the mix.
"Sharing the results typically elicits a highly positive response, often elucidating behaviour that a customer has been struggling to understand."