Super-Sensitive Nanoparticle Characterisation System

NanoSight has announced the release of a new super-sensitive system to compliment their range of instruments for imaging and sizing nanoparticles in liquid suspension. The system utilises EMCCD camera technology (Electron Multiplication Charge Coupled Device), which has improved the sensitivity of the standard Nanosight system by a factor of x100. In practical terms, this means that the lower limit of detection for a particular particle type has been improved by a factor of two when compared to the standard LM10 system.

NanoSight Head of Applications, Andrew Malloy, explains how this advance offers exciting potential in applications such as the detection of viruses including bacteriophages: “The ability to detect very small, low refractive index viruses (~20nm) and provide absolute virus concentrations is of paramount importance to those working in vaccine manufacture, phage therapeutics, virus clearance studies and virus purification.

The ability to count virus concentration had previously only been possible through labor-intensive Electron Microscopy whereas the NanoSight technique can provide information on virus concentration in less than a minute.”