Standardised Measurements of Surface Functionalities on Nanoparticles

Engineered nanoparticles have great application potential in fields such as medicine, sensing, catalysis, energy storage, and opto-electronics. The utility and performance of engineered nanoparticles is largely determined by their surface chemistry. However, documented standards to measure such surface chemistry and functionality do not currently exist. Such standards for measuring the surface functionality of nanoparticles are required to support industrial development, quality control and to meet regulatory requirements. Therefore, this project will address this issue by developing fit-for-purpose, validated, and standardised methods, and reference data and reference materials, for the measurement of the surface chemistry of nanoparticles using advanced measurement methods (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (qNMR) as well as more cost efficient, non-surface specific methods (optical and electrochemical methods).