Evaluation of a Commercial Instrument of Sedimentation Field Flow Fractionation

Abstract

The analysis of particles in the sub‐micron range by sedimentation field flow fractionation (SFFF) is not new, but its commercial exploitation is recent. This inevitably will lead to a rigorous evaluation of the technique by many laboratories, for many applications, as well as to rapid development. This paper describes first an evaluation of the new commercial instrument using both ideal and real materials. These experiments lead to a discussion of the software package and of the influence of experimental conditions. A particular study is described of the combination of the SFFF technique with that of quasi‐elastic light scattering. The paper concludes that SFFF now offers the technology for realistically measuring particle size distributions at high resolution in the submicron size range. The analysis time is in the order of one hour, but can be reduced at the expense of resolution.

Influence of particle-wall and particle-particle interactions on retention behavior in sedimentation field-flow fractionation

“…This "standard" theory by Giddings et al has advantages because it requires only the densities of particles and the eluent and experimental operation conditions, such as the flow rate, the strength of external field, temperature, and the channel dimensions. The average particle sizes converted by this theory from the retention times measured by using an aqueous solution with 0.1% Aerosol OT (AOT) surfactant as the eluent were generally found to agree well with the values obtained from the suppliers, quasi-elastic light-scattering spectroscopy (QELS), and/or electron microscopy, although SdFFF tended to give sizes somewhat smaller than other techniques (7)(8)(9)(10)(11).…”