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Particle Size Measurement and Detection of Bound Proteins of Non-Porous/Mesoporous Silica Microspheres by Single-Particle Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry
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Not relevant to microplastics — this study validates single-particle ICP-MS for measuring the size of silica microspheres and detecting iron-containing proteins bound to their surfaces, focused on analytical chemistry applications.
Single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (spICP-MS) has been used for particle size measurement of diverse types of individual nanoparticles and micrometer-sized carbon-based particles such as microplastics. However, its applicability to the measurement of micrometer-sized non-carbon-based particles such as silica (SiO2) particles is unclear. In this study, the applicability of spICP-MS to particle size measurement of non-porous/mesoporous SiO2 microspheres with a nominal diameter of 5.0 µm or smaller was investigated. Particle sizes of these microspheres were measured using both spICP-MS based on a conventional calibration approach using an ion standard solution and scanning electron microscopy as a reference technique, and the results were compared. The particle size distributions obtained using both techniques were in agreement within analytical uncertainty. The applicability of this technique to the detection of metal-containing protein-binding mesoporous SiO2 microspheres was also investigated. Bound iron (Fe)-containing proteins (i.e., lactoferrin and transferrin) of mesoporous SiO2 microspheres were detected using Fe as a presence marker for the proteins. Thus, spICP-MS is applicable to the particle size measurement of large-sized and non-porous/mesoporous SiO2 microspheres. It has considerable potential for element-based detection and qualification of bound proteins of mesoporous SiO2 microspheres in a variety of applications.
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Particle size Measurement and Detection of Bound Proteins of non-Porous/Mesoporous Silica Microspheres by Single-Particle Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry
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Researchers applied single-particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry to measure the size of non-porous and mesoporous silica microspheres and detect proteins bound to their surfaces. The study extended the technique beyond nanoparticles and carbon-based particles to characterize silica microspheres relevant to pharmaceutical and environmental applications.
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