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Evaluation of Electrospray as a Sample Preparation Tool for Electron Microscopic Investigations: Toward Quantitative Evaluation of Nanoparticles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2017

Johannes Mielke ,
Pavla Dohányosová ,
Philipp Müller ,
Silvia López-Vidal  and
Vasile-Dan Hodoroaba
Johannes Mielke
Affiliation:
Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), 12205 Berlin, Germany
Pavla Dohányosová
Affiliation:
RAMEM Ltd., 28027 Madrid, Spain
Philipp Müller
Affiliation:
Material Physics Research, BASF SE, 67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany
Silvia López-Vidal
Affiliation:
RAMEM Ltd., 28027 Madrid, Spain
Vasile-Dan Hodoroaba*
Affiliation:
Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), 12205 Berlin, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Dan.Hodoroaba@bam.de
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Abstract

The potential of electrospray deposition, for the controlled preparation of particles for imaging in electron microscopes, is evaluated on various materials: from mono-modal suspensions of spherical particles to multimodal suspensions and to real-world industrial materials. It is shown that agglomeration is reduced substantially on the sample carrier, compared with conventional sample preparation techniques. For the first time, it is possible to assess the number concentration of a tri-modal polystyrene suspension by electron microscopy, due to the high deposition efficiency of the electrospray. We discovered that some suspension stabilizing surfactants form artifact particles during electrospraying. These can be avoided by optimizing the sprayed suspension.

Keywords

electrospraynanoparticlessample preparationTEM gridSEM
Type
Materials Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 163 - 172
Copyright
© Microscopy Society of America 2017 

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