Monodisperse polystyrene latex spheres suspensions

The size distributions of colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles 74 nm to 14 nm in diameter are analyzed on-line. The sols are first diluted in water seeded with enough TFA to attain electrical conductivities in the range of 0.01 S/m. The solution is then finely dispersed into an atmosphere of CO2 via a Taylor cone-jet. The resisting electrospray of ultrafine droplets dries, transferring the solution particles virtually uncontaminated into the gas. There they are sized by means of a differential mobility analyzer and an inertial impactor of unusually high resolution. The technique is first tested successfully with previously calibrated monodisperse polystyrene latex (PSL) spheres 74 to 21 nm in diameter. It is then used to size a solution of colloidal silica with particle diameters nominally between 10 and 14 nm. 

An important step in tire progress of colloid science was tire development of monodisperse polymer latex suspensions in tire 1950s. These are prepared by emulsion polymerization, which is nowadays also carried out industrially on a large scale for many different polymers. Perhaps tire best-studied colloidal model system is tliat of polystyrene (PS) latex [9]. This is prepared with a hydrophilic group (such as sulphate) at tire end of each molecule. In water tliis produces well defined spheres witli a number of end groups at tire surface, which (partly) ionize to... 

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