🔬 Advancing Pharmaceutical Excellence with Laser Diffraction Analysis & The LS 13 320 XR 🔬

In pharmaceuticals, precision is everything. Ensuring optimal drug efficacy, stability, and bioavailability hinges on consistent particle size, and laser diffraction analysis is at the forefront of this innovation.

💊 Drug Formulation: With laser diffraction, we guarantee consistent particle size, crucial for delivering optimal drug performance.

🔍 Quality Control: The LS 13 320 XR by Beckman Coulter revolutionises particle size monitoring during production, ensuring unparalleled product quality. Its advanced technology offers:

-High-resolution measurements for accurate particle size distribution.
-Rapid Liquid/Powder/Emulsion analysis to streamline production processes.
-Broad size range capabilities from 10 nanometers to 3,5 millimeters.
-User-friendly ADAPT software for easy data interpretation.
-Robust design ensuring reliable and consistent performance.

Embrace the future of pharmaceutical manufacturing with the LS 13 320 XR, where precision meets innovation.

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Beckman Coulter LS 13 320 XR

Meritics, in partnership with Beckman Coulter, excels in Laser Diffraction Analysis using the LS 13 320 XR. Our expertise in this technology allows us to deliver precise and reliable particle size measurements, enhancing material characterisation for diverse applications. This collaboration underscores our commitment to advanced analytical solutions and industry-leading accuracy.

FlowCam: Particle Analysis for Materials Characterisation

We talk a lot about FlowCam for biopharmaceutical and aquatic applications. The high-quality images resulting in detailed morphologic data are ideally suited for these applications – to discriminate among different kinds of particles and cells like aggregates, contaminants, and other outliers. VisualSpreadsheet provides an easy-to-use method to sort and identify particle images based on their shape and 40+ attributes.

Beyond standard particle sizing and counting, FlowCam is also an exceptional tool for performing materials testing in accordance with compliance and cleanliness standards. Customers are using FlowCam across a broad range of applications to compare advanced particle shape data between different lots and production steps to detect process flaws and improve product performance, quality, and safety. Keep reading to learn more about the many different kinds of materials FlowCam can image and analyse.

Wash Water and Cleanliness Testing

Dirt, fibres, and debris always seem to make their way into finished components – especially in aerospace, automotive, electronic, and hydraulic systems. Water used to wash devices or components after manufacturing is analysed to determine what and how many particles are present. Traces of fibres, metals, and plastics that remain from the manufacturing process may cause product failures. FlowCam makes it easy to sort and filter particle data and build libraries to automatically quantify and characterise each particle type.

Characterisation of Superabrasives

Superabrasives, such as micronized diamonds and cubic boron nitride (CBN), are used extensively in applications for cutting, grinding, and drilling hard materials. Particle size and shape play an important role in the durability and effectiveness of these superabrasive grinding tools. As it turns out, shape uniformity is a critical quality attribute where particles with smooth and rounded edges are most effective! FlowCam provides particle morphology analysis and can report on what percentage of particles meet uniformity standards around circularity and aspect ratio.

Fibre Analysis

Who knew that geometry would play such a crucial role in the performance of fibres in different applications? Shape factors that influence performance include length, width, and curl. Despite the importance of fibre geometry, many conventional particle sizing measurements struggle to accurately capture the morphology of these particles.

FlowCam excels in this process with integrated fibre morphology parameters that include geodesic length, geodesic thickness, fibre straightness, and fibre curl. Using these advanced measurements, FlowCam provides more accurate and reliable data than volumetric-based methods and offers significant time-savings over manual microscopy. 

Crop and Soil Sciences

FlowCam aids in assessing seed viability and studying plant development defects. There is an interesting cross-over application with the pharmaceutical industry when FlowCam is used to analyse the shape and intactness of pollen shell capsules in drug delivery systems. FlowCam is also a valuable tool in agriculture applications for identifying and monitoring soil microbes, mites, forest litter invertebrates, and nematodes contributing to crop health.

Microencapsulation Process Analysis

FlowCam is essential for microencapsulation research and quality control across various industries including food, beverage, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and fragrances. It provides unique insights into the microencapsulation process by dynamically monitoring capsule formation over time, allowing for optimisation and clean coacervate formation.

Food and Beverage Particle Characterisation

Ingredients play a vital role in the food and beverage industry. Taste and texture are important quality attributes determined by particle size and shape. Leveraging flow imaging microscopy, you can identify diverse particle types within a mixed composition to achieve quality standards and pinpoint operational inefficiencies. With its high-throughput capabilities, FlowCam is perfect for identifying variations in particle size, shape, and structure, streamlining the quality control process.

Printer Toner Quality Assurance

Did you know that the size and shape of printer toner particles can considerably impact the image resolution and efficiency of a printer’s output? The uniformity of these particles also impacts the distribution of charge they carry, which can ultimately influence the overall quality of images. Utilising FlowCam for image characterization can aid in identifying the size, shape, circularity, and material consistency of printer toner particles throughout the production process and lead to overall improved quality.

Have we piqued your interest in learning more about FlowCam for materials characterisation?  Download our materials applications brochure and let us know what you think.

Performing Zeta Potential Measurements

The electro-kinetic potential of colloids is known as its zeta potential. This is the difference in charge repulsion/attraction between mobile particles in a dispersion fluid, and the stationary layers of ions which have attached to the surfaces of insoluble nanoparticles dispersed throughout the medium.

Zeta potential measurement is performed by dispersing nanoparticles in a liquid medium of varying pH levels, and applying an electrical field throughout the colloid. Using dynamic light scattering (DLS) equipment, it is possible to observe the nanoparticle’s motion (velocity) and interaction with ions in the dispersive medium. Charged dispersion particles will form a series of layers on the surface of the nanoparticle, collectively known as the electrical double layer, which comprises an initial skin of charged ions and a secondary diffuse outer layer. As the nanoparticle moves through the dispersion, the particles attached in these layers exhibit different electrostatic properties to those particles forming the bulk of the dispersion fluid.

This electro-kinetic activity is significant in the characterization of product stability, providing insights into the formulations of emulsions and aiding product optimization through rapid and accurate assessments of additive success.

Applications for Zeta Potential Measurement

Zeta potential measurement is a significant particle analysis method in particle aggregation studies and the establishment and optimization of emulsion short and long-term physical stability.

Zeta potential measurement has shown that dispersions with a charge close to zero – whether exhibiting a positive or negative charge – tend to yield shorter shelf-lives, with an inclination towards coagulation or flocculation of emulsions. Conversely, emulsions with a surface activity greater than ~ +/- 30mV are inclined towards improved system stability and low aggregation.

Zeta potential measurement is therefore an important consideration for the accurate establishment and forecasting of product shelf lives, particularly as a screening method for the control of repeated batch consistency.

Particle analysis such as zeta potential measurement is increasingly important in the food and beverage sector, where mass-production and packaging of food and beverages for worldwide sales must meet stringent mandatory compliance criteria and performance standards. End products must consistently deliver on taste and texture, they must be reproduceable on large scales, and they must advertise accurate shelf lives for safe human consumption. Zeta potential measurement can not only provide accurate data towards shelf-life forecasting, it can aid in research of potential additives to improve zeta potential, thereby increasing product stability.

Zeta Potential Management Products from Meritics

Meritics are particle size and zeta potential measurement experts, providing services and instruments to academic and commercial sectors alike, where precise and consistent measurements are fundamental to achieving repeatable results for studies or for the manufacture of consumer products.

Meritics provide zeta potential measurement systems suitable for all levels of research, development, and manufacturing, allowing for rapid analysis of particle properties and characteristics. The Bettersize BeNano 180 Zeta Pro is a zeta potential and particle size analyser capable of simultaneous assessment of particle size and zeta potential in as little as one second, with instant results cross-checking. This accurate rapidity is crucial to the optimisation of high-quality, fast-moving consumer goods.

It is very important in measuring zeta potential that the time and level of current passing into the sample are minimised to avoid any possible damage to the sample, particularly biological materials. In the Bettersize BeNano 180 Zeta Pro from Meritics, both particle size and zeta potential are measured simultaneously, and in just a couple of seconds minimising any potential sample damage and also allowing measurements of aggregation to be made over short periods of time. To minimise the appearance of gas bubbles which can interfere with the zeta potential measurement.

If you would like any more information about our Zeta Potential measurement instruments, or any of our other products, please do not hesitate to get in touch.