Sedimentation Field Flow Fractionation for the characterization of colloidal and micron particulate species

............................................................................................................................ 12 Introduction....................................................................................................................... 13 Field Flow Fractionation (FFF) ........................................................................................ 14 1. Historical introduction .............................................................................................. 14 2. Most used FFF subtechniques................................................................................... 15 3. Sedimentation field flow fractionation (SdFFF)....................................................... 15 4. Theory of retention ................................................................................................... 17 4.1. Retention in the normal mode............................................................................ 17 4.2. Retention in the steric and steric-hyperlayer modes .......................................... 20 5. FFF and colloids ....................................................................................................... 24 Optical Multiwavelength Technique (OMT) .................................................................... 27 1. Measurement principle.............................................................................................. 27 2. Parameter diagrams................................................................................................... 29 3. Off-line hyphenation of SdFFF with OMT............................................................... 31 Material and methods........................................................................................................ 32 1. SdFFF system............................................................................................................ 32 2. Channel and rotor bowl............................................................................................. 33 3. Channel sealing procedure........................................................................................ 37 4. Field programming.................................................................................................... 39 5. Data acquisition system ............................................................................................ 41 6. OMT unit .................................................................................................................. 42 Results and discussion ...................................................................................................... 44 1. OMT-PCS-SEM comparative analysis of latex and oxide particles (Manuscript I) 44 2. SdFFF-OMT-SEM analysis of oxide particles (Manuscript II)................................ 45 3. SdFFF-OMT-SMPS analysis of automobile soot particles (Manuscript III)............ 47 4. Fast hyperlayer SdFFF separation (Manuscript IV) ................................................. 49 Conclusion and perspectives............................................................................................. 52 References......................................................................................................................... 55