Real-time Monitoring of Colloidal Nanoparticles using Light Sheet Dark-field Microscopy Combined with Microfluidic Concentration Gradient Generator (mu FCGG-LSDFM)

Abstract

For real-time monitoring of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) in aqueous media, a light sheet type dark-field microscopy system combined with a microfluidic concentration gradient generator (mu FCGG-LSDFM) was developed. Various concentrations of colloidal Au NPs were simultaneously generated with the iFCGG and characterized with the LSDFM setup. The number concentrations and hydrodynamic size distributions were measured via particle counting and tracking analysis (PCA and PTA, respectively) approaches. For the 30 nm Au NPs used in this study, the lower detection limit of the LSDFM setup was 3.6 ng/mL, which is about 400 times better than that of optical density measurements under the same mu FCGG system. Additionally, the hydrodynamic diameter distribution of Au NPs was estimated as 39.7 +/- 12.2 nm with the PTA approach, which agrees well with DLS measurement as well as the manufacturer's specification. We propose this mu FCGG-LSDFM setup with features of automatic generation of NP concentration gradient and real-time monitoring of their physicochemical characteristics (e.g., number concentration, and hydrodynamic size distribution) as an important component of future high-throughput screening or high-content analysis platforms of nanotoxicity.