Work

Shape separation of gold nanorods using centrifugation

Year: 2009

Type: article

Abstract: We demonstrate the use of centrifugation for efficient separation of colloidal gold nanorods from a mixture of nanorods and nanospheres. We elucidate the hydrodynamic behavior of nanoparticles of various shapes and illustrate that the shape-dependent drag causes particles to have shape-dependent sedimentation behavior. During centrifugation, nanoparticles undergo Brownian motion under an external field and move with different sedimentation velocities dictated by their Svedberg coefficients. This effects a separation of particles of different shape and size. Our theoretical analysis and experiments demonstrate the viability of using centrifugation to shape-separate a mixture of colloidal particles.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0800599106

Authors: Vivek Sharma, Kyoungweon Park, Mohan Srinivasarao

Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Field-Flow Fractionation Techniques

Subfield: Analytical Chemistry

Field: Chemistry

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research

Award: Collaborative Research: Liquid Crystal Anchoring and its Dependence on Interfacial Nano-structure