We are very proud that Ana has been awarded the CRC Press poster prize related to the characterization of iron nanoparticles by single-particle (SP) ICP-MS. SP-ICP-MS can be seen as one of the fastest growing approaches nowadays for the analysis of nanomaterials. This technique provides a wide range of information, such as chemical composition, size distribution, particle number density and mass concentration. The biennial European Winter conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry is the most important European conference on (single-particle) ICP-MS, with attendance of more than 500 scientists and presentations of more than 300 posters.
Iron nanoparticles are of especial interest owing to their magnetic properties in e.g., the use as a contrast agent in functional MR imaging. The gas-diffusion electrocrystallization (GDEx) process developed at VITO (Xochitl Dominguez) allows the production of tailored nanoparticles for research industry and has been optimized during the research work of VITO’s postdoc Guillermo Pozo Zamora and VITO’s PhD Rafael Prato for the synthesis of tailored iron (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. The poster award is an important recognition of VITO’s developments in the field of nano characterization and underpins the importance of a close collaboration between state of the art analytical developments and chemical processing.
Congratulations to all of the VITO researchers involved in the “nano” field as well as our “nano” partners within UGent and KULeuven to achieve another milestone in the growing interdisciplinary research @ VITO dedicated to sustainable nano solutions.
