Use of flow field-flow fractionation and single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for size determination of selenium nanoparticles in a mixture

Luluil Maknun; Jitapa Sumranjit; Atitaya Siripinyanond

doi:10.1039/c9ra07120b

Use of flow field-flow fractionation and single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for size determination of selenium nanoparticles in a mixture

RSC Adv. 2020 Feb 11;10(11):6423-6435. doi: 10.1039/c9ra07120b. eCollection 2020 Feb 7.

Authors

Luluil Maknun¹, Jitapa Sumranjit², Atitaya Siripinyanond¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Center of Excellence for Innovation in Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University Rama VI Road Bangkok 10400 Thailand atitaya.sir@mahidol.ac.th +66-2-354-7151 +66-2-201-5195.
² National Nanotechnology Center, National Science and Technology Development Agency 111 Phahonyothin Rd., Klongluang Pathumthani 12120 Thailand.

Abstract

Various analytical techniques have been used for size analysis of selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs). These include flow field-flow fractionation (FlFFF), single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (SP-ICP-MS), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). For hydrodynamic diameter estimation, the FlFFF technique was used and the results were compared with those analyzed by DLS. For core diameter estimation, the results obtained from SP-ICP-MS were compared with those from TEM. Two types of FlFFF channel were employed, i.e., symmetrical FlFFF (Sy-FlFFF) and asymmetrical FlFFF (Asy-FlFFF). Considering the use of FlFFF, optimization was performed on a Sy-FlFFF channel to select the most appropriate carrier liquid and membrane in order to minimize problems due to particle membrane interaction. The use of FL-70 and 10 kDa RC provided an acceptable compromise peak quality and size accuracy for all samples of SeNPs which were coated by proteins (positively charged SeNPs) and sodium dodecyl sulfate (negatively charged SeNPs). FlFFF always yielded the lower estimate of the hydrodynamic size than DLS as a reference method. The results obtained by SP-ICP-MS were consistent with the TEM method for the core diameter estimation. The results from FlFFF and the DLS reference method were significantly different as confirmed by paired t-test analysis, while the results provided by SP-ICP-MS and the TEM reference method were not significantly different. Furthermore, consecutive size analysis by SP-ICP-MS for the fractions collected from FlFFF was proposed for sizing of SeNP mixtures. The combined technique helps to improve the size analysis in the complex samples and shows more advantages than using only SP-ICP-MS.