Application of Electrosprays to Synthesis and Measurement of Nanoparticles

Abstract

Electrospray (ES) technique is one of the few known schemes capable of atomizing a liquid into ultrafine droplets. By this method, a meniscus of conducting solution formed at the tip of a capillary tube becomes conical in shape when high voltage is applied between the tip and the counter electrode. Droplets are generated by the continuous breakup of a liquid jet at the apex of the cone. The most common use of ES has been as the ion source for mass spectrometry. This paper first reviews various applications of ES in nanoparticle synthesis. ES is also a tool to transfer inorganic or/and organic matters in a liquid into a gas-phase. In the present work, the size distribution of the generated aerosol was determined by a differential mobility analyzer (DMA) and a counter system. The results show that the ES-DMA system is a convenient and reliable tool for the rapid size determination of colloidal nanoparticles or water-soluble polymers, being capable of simultaneously measuring the mobility distribution and concentration of total residue present in the sample waters.