Analysis of gold nanoparticles using ICP-MS-based hyphenated and complementary ESI-MS techniques

Rapid growth in developments related to nanotechnology requires highly capable analytical techniques. They are urgently needed for the characterisation of the materials developed and manufactured as well as for the evaluation of their potential toxicity on ecological and biological systems. Moreover, reliable methods can help to understand the nanoparticle formation. In this work, we apply hyphenated techniques (liquid chromatography (LC) and gel electrophoresis (GE) coupled to inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)) to the characterisation of synthesised gold nanoparticles. The LC-ICP-MS approach is optimised for monitoring the formation of citrate-stabilised Au nanoparticles. The GE-ICP-MS methodology is used for the determination of Au+/S+-ratios in gold nanoparticles covered by mercaptosuccinic acid (MSA) by simultaneous ICP-MS detection of the sought elements. These ratios are a very valuable parameter for further characterisation of the nanoparticles. However, as ICP-MS does not provide any molecular information of the nanoparticle, electrospray ionisation-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) is applied as complementary technique. The combined approach of ICP-MS and ESI-MS – well-known from speciation and metallomics studies – might be considered as an alternative powerful tool for future nanoparticle studies.

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► Hyphenated ICP-MS techniques for the characterisation of gold nanoparticles.
► Monitoring the nucleation process of synthesised nanoparticles.
► Characterisation of nanoparticles through their elemental ratios by ICP-MS.
► ESI-MS as complementary technique for molecular nanoparticle characterisation.