Influence of dispersion agents on particle size and concentration determined by laser-induced breakdown detection

Abstract

Laser-induced breakdown detection (LIBD) is a very promising analytical technique to determine the size and the concentration of nanoparticles (NPs) in aqueous suspensions. The measurement principle is based on the formation of individual plasma events selectively produced when a pulsed, focused laser beam hits a NP. The breakdown probability (BDP) is defined as the ratio of the number of plasma events detected to the total number of laser pulses applied. Energy curves are established by recording the BDP as a function of the laser energy which is increased in a stepwise manner. The size and the concentration of NPs in aqueous suspensions can be extracted from recorded energy curves. Although several studies have already documented the potential of the LIBD technique to detect NPs at trace concentrations in aqueous suspensions, the effect of dissolved matrix constituents (e.g. dispersion agents, which are frequently used to stabilize NPs in suspension) on the LIBD signal has not been addressed, yet.We therefore recorded energy curves of ultrahigh purity (UHP) water and NP suspensions both spiked with different dispersion agents at different concentrations. An increasing shift of the energy curves towards lower energies was observed with increasing concentrations of dispersion agents. The LIBD-derived size of the NPs was less affected by the presence of dispersion agents than the LIBD-derived particle number concentrations, which deviated by up to 300% from the expected values. The effects on the calculated concentrations were most pronounced at low (2·107particlesmL−1) NP concentrations and at higher NP concentrations (3·108particlesmL−1), the effect of the dispersion agents on the energy curves became negligible. These results show that dissolved matrix constituents substantially affect LIBD measurements, especially at low NP concentrations.