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Nowadays, people spend most of their time indoors. Thus, a good indoor air quality is important. Emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from furniture and building materials can cause health complaints1. Quantitative VOC-emission testing is carried out under standardized conditions in emission test chambers. In the presented project an emission reference material (ERM) is developed that emits a defined mixture of VOCs which is required for quality assurance and -control (QA/QC) measures. Porous materials (e.g zeolites, activated carbons, MOFs or aerogels) are used as reservoir materials and impregnated with VOC. The porous materials are selected, among others, by their pore size, pore size distribution, polarity and availability. Due to their regular pore structure zeolites are tested at first. For a prediction of the emission profile, the ERM is supposed to exhibit a constant emission rate over time. The aim is a stability of ≤ 10 % change in the emission rate over a minimum of 14 days.
Method
For impregnation, the material is placed into an autoclave inside a rotatable basket. The VOC is added and the autoclave is closed. Afterwards, CO2 is inserted. The closed system is then heated to the supercritical point of CO2 (31 °C, 73.75 bar). In this state, the CO2 acts as solvent for the VOC. By rotating the basket, the distribution of the VOC is ensured. After a few minutes, the pressure is decreased slowly and the CO2 is released. For the determination of the emission profile, the impregnated sample is placed into an emission test chamber. These chambers can be operated either with dry or humid air (50 ± 5 % rel. humidity). Every second to third day, air samples are taken and analyzed by gas chromatography. For an ideal impregnation, several different pressures and temperatures as well as impregnation times are tested.
Results
Two zeolite materials tested in dry air conditions reach emission profiles with a decrease of less than 10 % over 14 days (heptane and toluene, respectively). Further it was discovered that smaller pellets of the same zeolite show better results than bigger particles. When the pore size of a zeolite is too small, e.g. 0.3 nm, the VOC cannot be absorbed sufficiently. The main disadvantage of zeolites is their hygroscopicity because it has a large impact on the release of VOC when they are used in emission test chambers under standardized test conditions (23 °C, 50 % rel. humidity). Activated carbons have emission profiles with a larger change over 14 days. However, the high hydrophobicity allows measurements in humid air conditions which was not possible with the before mentioned hygroscopic zeolites. It is possible to impregnate powdered materials as well, and thus powdered non-hygroscopic (n.h.) zeolites were impregnated. Their emission profiles are comparable to those of the activated carbons. The use of methylated hygroscopic zeolites with a decrease in hygroscopicity did not yield successful emission measurements. The change over 14 days is calculated only for the stable phase (~250–300 h).
The desired stability of ≤ 10 % change of the emission rate over 14 days could already be reached under dry testing conditions. Further investigations under humid conditions show that zeolites with high Si/Al-ratios are non-hygroscopic and comparable to activated carbons (20–30 % change). The next step is to reduce the change in the emission rate of these materials to the aimed ≤ 10 % over 14 days.
Since nowadays people spend most of their time indoors, a healthy environment is essential. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from furniture and building materials are reported to cause health complaints. Therefore, the usage of low emitting materials will improve the indoor air quality. Quantitative VOC emission testing is usually conducted in emission test chambers under specified controlled conditions as described in DIN 16000-9 and DIN EN 16516.
For reasons of quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) and for a better comparability of test results from different laboratories, suitable emission reference materials (ERM) are needed. Here, it is important to have a homogenous material with known emission rates over a specific time. Different approaches can be found in literature, inter alia polymer films loaded with the target compound to be released again, or a lacquer material to which a VOC mixture is added. After curing of the lacquer, the material can be loaded into a test chamber. Drawback of those approaches are their relatively fast decreasing emission profiles. For QC/QA purposes according to the test standards, VOC sources with constant emission profiles are desirable.
The EU-funded research project MetrIAQ “Metrology for the determination of emissions of dangerous substances from building materials into indoor air” is working on a multi-component ERM with an envisaged instability of ≤ 10 % in the emission rate over at least 14 days.
Within a doctoral thesis porous materials are impregnated with VOCs. Supercritical CO2 is used as solvent. Thus, the impregnated material does not contain any solvent that may show a measurable amount of emission in the emission test chamber. Furthermore, CO2 has the benefits to have a good availability and low costs. For the selection of porous materials several properties like the pore size, the surface, and the interaction with the components in the atmosphere need to be considered. The impregnation method is optimised while the different porous materials are tested. For the selection of porous materials the pores need to be large enough for the VOC molecules, further influence of the pore size is tested.
Nowadays amorphous silica nanoparticles (SiO2-NP) are one of the most abundant engineered nanomaterials, that are highly stable and can be easily produced on a large scale at low cost. Surface functionalized SiO2-NP are of great interest in the life and material sciences, as they can be used e.g. as
drug carriers, fluorescent sensors, and multimodal labels in bioanalytical assays and imaging applications. Their performance in such applications depends not only on particle size, size distribution, and morphology, but also on surface chemistry, i.e. the total number of surface functional groups (FG)
and the number of FG accessible for subsequent functionalization with ligands or biomolecules, which in turn determines surface charge, colloidal stability, biocompatibility, and toxicity. Aiming at the development of simple, versatile, and multimodal tools for the quantification of many bioanalytically relevant FG and ligands, we investigated and compared various analytical methods commonly used for FG quantification. This includes electrochemical titration methods, dye-based optical assays, and other instrumental analytical techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance and thermal analysis methods.
The potential of our multimodal approach for FG quantification was demonstrated for commercial and custom-made silica particles of varying FG, showing not only an influence of the synthesis methods on the number of FG but also on the performance. In the future, our strategy can contribute to establish multi-method characterization strategies to provide a more detailed picture of the structure-properties relationship.
In the focus of division Biophotonics are the design, preparation, analytical and spectroscopic characterization, and application of molecular and nanoscale
functional materials, particularly materials with a photoluminescence in the visible, near infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR). This includes optical reporters for bioimaging and sensing, security and authentication barcodes, and materials for solid state lighting, energy conversion, and photovoltaics. For the identification of optimum particle structures quantitative spectroscopic studies are performed under application-relevant conditions, focusing on the key performance parameter photoluminescence quantum yield. In addition, simple, cost-efficient, and standardizable strategies for quantifying functional groups on the surface of nano- and microparticles are developed, here with a focus on optical assays and electrochemical titration methods, cross-validated by more advanced methods such as quantitative NMR. In addition, reference materials and reference products are developed for optical methods, particularly luminescence techniques, and for analytical methods utilized for the characterization of nanomaterials.
Photoluminescence Quantum Yields of Luminescent Nanocrystals and Particles in the UV/vis/NIR/SWIR
(2023)
The rational design of functional luminescent materials such as semiconductor quantum dots and lanthanide-based upconversion nanoparticles, all photophysical and mechanistic studies, and the comparison of different emitters require accurate and quantitative photoluminescence measurements. Particularly the reliable determination of the key performance parameter photoluminescence quantum yield (f), the number of emitted per absorbed photons, and the brightness are of special importance for luminescence applications in the life and material sciences and nano(bio)photonics.[1] In this context, examples for absolute measurements of the photoluminescence quantum yields of UV/vis/NIR/SWIR emissive semiconductor quantum dots and rods, made from different materials, and spectrally shifting lanthanide upconversion nanocrystals with different surface chemistries in transparent matrices are presented including excitation wavelength and power density dependent studies utilizing integration sphere spectroscopy.[2,3] In addition, procedures for the absolute determination of the photoluminescence quantum yields of scattering dispersions of larger size quantum rods and differently sized inorganic particles have been developed as well as procedures for the characterization of solid luminescent nanomaterials such as different perovskites and YAG:Cer converter materials.[4] Thereby, challenges and pitfalls of f measurements in different wavelength regions including the SWIR and material-specific effects related to certain emitter classes are addressed, achievable uncertainties are quantified, and relative and absolute measurements of photoluminescence quantum yield measurements are compared to underline limitations of the former approach. Finally, a set of novel UV/vis/NIR quantum yield standards is presented including their certification with a complete uncertainty budget.[5]
Iron Oxide Nanocubes as a New Certified Reference Material for Nanoparticle Size Measurements
(2023)
The rational design and increasing industrial use of nanomaterials require a reliable characterization of their physicochemical key properties like size, size distribution, shape, and surface chemistry. This calls for nanoscale reference materials (nanoRMs) for the validation and standardization of commonly used characterization methods closely matching real-world nonspherical nano-objects. This encouraged us to develop a nonspherical nanoRM of very small size consisting of 8 nm iron oxide nanocubes (BAM-N012) to complement spherical gold, silica, and polymer nanoRMs. In the following, the development and production of this nanoRM are highlighted including the characterization by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) as complementary methods for size and shape parameters, homogeneity and stability studies, and calculation of a complete uncertainty budget of the size features. The determination of the nanocubes’ edge length by TEM and SAXS allows a method comparison. In addition, SAXS measurements can also provide the mean particle number density and the mass concentration. The certified size parameters, area equivalent circular diameter and square edge length, determined by TEM with a relative expanded uncertainty below 9%, are metrologically traceable to a natural constant for length, the very precisely known (111) lattice spacing of silicon. Cubic BAM-N012 qualifies as a certified nanoRM for estimating the precision and trueness, validation, and quality assurance of particle size and shape measurements with electron microscopy and SAXS as well as other sizing methods suitable for nanomaterials. The production of this new iron oxide nanocube RM presents an important achievement for the nanomaterial community, nanomaterial manufacturers, and regulators.
With femtosecond-laser direct writing (fs-LDW) maturing in all aspects as a manufacturing technology, a toolset for quality assurance must be developed. In this work we introduce a first of its kind test artifact. Test artifacts are standardized 3D models with specific geometric features to evaluate the performance of writing parameters. Test artifacts are already common in other 3D additive manufacturing technologies e.g. selective laser melting. The test artifact introduced in this work was developed in particular to accommodate the high geometrical resolution of fs-LDW structures and the limited possibilities to examine the resulting structure. Geometric accuracy, surface adhesion as well as confocal Raman spectroscopy results were considered when evaluating the design of the test artifact. We will explain the individual features and design considerations of our fs-LDW test artifact. The difference between two slicers, Cura and 3DPoli, and the implications on measured feature sizes and the general shape is quantified. The measured geometries are used to derive a general design guide for a specific combination of photoresists, laser power and scanning speed and to analyze the geometric accuracy of a structure produced using these guidelines. The shown test artifact is publicly available as STL file on GitHub (https://github.com/BAMresearch/2PP-TestArtifact) and in the supplement.
The rational design of next generation molecular and nanoscale reporters and the comparison of different emitter classes require the determination of the fluorometric key performance parameter fluorescence quantum yield (Φf), i.e., the number of emitted photons per number of absorbed photons. Main prerequisites for reliable Φf measurements, which are for transparent luminophore solutions commonly done relative to a reference, i.e., a fluorescence quantum yield standard of known Φf, are reliable and validated instrument calibration procedures to consider wavelength-, polarization-, and time-dependent instrument specific signal contributions, and sufficiently well characterized fluorescence quantum yield standards. As the standard’s Φf value directly contributes to the calculation of the sample’s Φf, its accuracy presents one of the main sources of uncertainty of relative Φf measurements. To close this gap, we developed a first set of 12 fluorescence quantum yield standards, which absorb and emit in the wavelength region of 330−1000 nm and absolutely determined their Φf values with two independently calibrated integrating sphere setups.
Criteria for standard selection and the configuration of these novel fluorescence reference materials are given, and the certification procedure is presented including homogeneity and stability studies and the calculation of complete uncertainty budgets for the certified Φf values. The ultimate goal is to provide the community of fluorescence users with available reference materials as a basis for an improved comparability and reliability of quantum yield data since the measurement of this spectroscopic key property is an essential part of the characterization of any new emitter.
The cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) is a plant virus explored as a nanotechnological platform. The robust self-assembly mechanism of its capsid protein allows for drug encapsulation and targeted delivery. Additionally, the capsid nanoparticle can be used as a programmable platform to display different molecular moieties. In view of future applications, efficient production and purification of plant viruses are key steps. In established protocols, the need for ultracentrifugation is a significant limitation due to cost, difficult scalability, and safety issues. In addition, the purity of the final virus isolate often remains unclear. Here, an advanced protocol for the purification of the CCMV from infected plant tissue was developed, focusing on efficiency, economy, and final purity. The protocol involves precipitation with PEG 8000, followed by affinity extraction using a novel peptide aptamer. The efficiency of the protocol was validated using size exclusion chromatography, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, reversed-phase HPLC, and sandwich immunoassay. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the final eluate of the affinity column is of exceptional purity (98.4%) determined by HPLC and detection at 220 nm. The scale-up of our proposed method seems to be straightforward, which opens the way to the large-scale production of such nanomaterials. This highly improved protocol may facilitate the use and implementation of plant viruses as nanotechnological platforms for in vitro and in vivo applications.
The surface chemistry of nanomaterials controls their interaction with the environment and biological species and their fate and is hence also relevant for their potential toxicity. This has meanwhile led to an increasing interest in validated and preferably standardized methods for the determination and quantification of surface functionalities on nanomaterials and initiated different standardization projects within ISO/TC 229 and IEC/TC 113 as well as interlaboratory comparisons (ILCs) of different analytical methods for the quantification of surface coatings by OECD. Here we present the results of a first ILC on the quantification of the amount of amino functionalities on differently sized inorganic nanoparticles done by division Biophotonics and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the PWI 19257 on the Characterization and Quantification of Surface Functional Groups and Coatings on Nanoobjects approved by ISO/TC 229 (WG2) in fall 2022 that will result in a VAMAS study on this topic organized by division Biophotonics. Key words: nanoparticles, surface analysis, surface functional groups, quantification, optical assay, qNMR, VAMAS, standardization, ICL, quality assurance, reference material.