Fractionation of nanoparticles by preparative gel electrophoresis

凝胶电泳是一种已建立的高选择性分析和制备分离大分子的方法。在一些工作中已经研究了通过凝胶电泳分离纳米颗粒，但是对于应用相关的材料如金属氧化物几乎没有研究，并且缺少能够快速有效纯化的一般工艺知识。该项目的目的是建立金属氧化物纳米颗粒的凝胶电泳分离，并进行广泛的工艺研究。通过使用模型材料与定义的属性，如球形SiO2纳米粒子与不同的，可控的形态和定义的表面化学的ZnO纳米结构的大小和不同的，这种方法的适用性的广泛理解的纳米粒子的分级开发。此外，特别设计的2D凝胶电泳装置一方面用于制备性（半）连续分离，另一方面用于根据例如尺寸和表面电荷的多维分离。这是补充数学建模，首先根据经验的结果，并在第二个项目阶段，考虑到凝胶结构的模拟扩展。

Gel electrophoresis is an established method for the highly selective analytical and preparative fractionation of macromolecules. The separation of nanoparticles by gel electrophoresis has been studied in some works, however it has hardly been studied for application-relevant materials such as metal oxides, and general process knowledge enabling the fast and efficient purification is missing. The aim of this project is to establish gel electrophoresis fractionation of metal oxide nanoparticles and to perform extensive process investigations. By using model materials with defined properties, such as spherical SiO2 nanoparticles with variable size and ZnO nanostructures with different, controllable morphologies and defined surface chemistry, a broad understanding of the suitability of this method for the fractionation of nanoparticles is developed. Furthermore, a specially designed 2D gel electrophoresis device is used on the one hand for the preparative (semi-) continuous separation and, on the other hand, for a multidimensional separation according to e.g. size and surface charge. This is complemented by mathematical modelling, first based on empirical results, and is extended in the second project phase by a simulation taking into account the gel structure.