The starting situation

Nanoparticles are used in an increasing number of products for everyday use. They take care of the protecting effect of Sun creams, make car coatings and spectacle lenses scratch resistant and reliably protect shoes from wetness. Nanoparticles with antibacterial properties are used in clothing and refrigerators. While in the year 2007 sales for nanomaterials in Germany was 30 M€, this number will increase to up to 3 G€ in the year 2015 (BMBF study).
Particles with a size between 1 and 100 nanometre are designated as nanoparticles. In this, a nanometre is one millionth of a millimetre. The biological, chemical and physical material’s properties in such small structures differ significantly from what is normal in macroscopic particles. One example is the excited emission of light (fluorescence) that only occurs in particles on nanoscale. Compared to other substances, nanoparticles also have an immensely large surface area (with respect to their volume). This surface area is responsible for an additional series of material properties and also determines (for a large part) the environmental impact of these substances. Living creatures and therefore also human cells will come in contact with this surface and will react to that.

Our Goal

For an effective use of nanoparticles, it is absolutely necessary to be able to accurately analyse their materials and surface properties. That is why it is surprising that there are hardly any procedures for the surface analysis of nanoparticles available. Though their size can be determined, information about the chemical composition is very hardl to obtain. That is why NanoPaCT has taken up the task to close this gap.

NanoPaCT (NanoParticle Characterisation Techniques) is a project of a consortium of five partners in Münster. This project is financially supported by the Department of Innovation of Nordrhein Westfalen. NanoPaCT utilizes the high standard of expertise in Münster in the fields of surface and nanoanalysis to bring about improvements in the available individual techniques for the characterisation of nanoparticles as well as a cooperative network between these techniques. Besides that, the study of the biological effects of nanoparticles will play a major role.