Analyze, Characterize, and Understand the Physicochemical State of Your Dispersion, Emulsion, Suspension, or Suspoemulsion.
LUM makes analytical tools for the comprehensive physicochemical characterization of nano and microparticle dispersions.
We offer you two primary technology platforms to analyze and explore your dispersion properties:
The STEP-Technology® allows you to measure stability directly across your entire undiluted sample from top to bottom, measure particle size from the nanometer to the upper micron range, and calculate shelf life (ISO Technical Report ISO/TR 13097:2013).
The SPLS-Technology® allows you to count and size every particle in your emulsion or suspension across a size range of 40 nanometers up to 8 microns with the industry-leading resolution.
STEP-Technology®
The STEP-Technology® (Space Time Extinction Profiles) allows you to instantly analyze your sample's physicochemical characteristics from top to bottom.
The STEP-Technology® is an ensemble technique analogous to DLS (dynamic light scattering or photon correlation spectroscopy) and laser diffraction (static light scattering).
Ensemble methods measure the scattering or absorption profiles of groups of particles illuminated with an electromagnetic radiation source in a defined measurement zone.
The STEP-Technology®, however, differs from dynamic light scattering (DLS) and laser diffraction (LD) in several essential ways.
The STEP-Technology® is a “first principle” measurement technique. Unlike DLS and LD, a first principles, or ab initio, method starts directly at the level of established laws of physics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_pr ). It does not make assumptions like empirical models and fitting parameters and allows you to measure stability accurately.
With the STEP-Technology®, you can analyze your complete sample instantaneously from top to bottom. Laser diffraction and dynamic light scattering measure particle size only at one point (essentially the cross-section of the illuminating light beam).
With the STEP-Technology®, you can work with high-concentration samples (usually undiluted). Laser diffraction and dynamic light scattering methods require significant dilutions.
With the STEP-Technology®, you can directly measure the stability of your dispersion, emulsion, suspension, and suspoemulsion (ISO/TR 13097). By directly, we mean you can take any sample and measure its stability without dilution or inputting any physical parameters. Furthermore, with the STEP-Technology®, you can differentiate between various instability mechanisms such as coagulation, coalescence, flocculation, Ostwald ripening, creaming, and sedimentation. You can do this across your entire sample. Compare that to measuring zeta potentials (electrophoretic mobilities), which require dilution and the input of physical parameters and only give you an indirect stability measurement.
We integrated different flavors of the STEP-Technology® into several distinct instrument lines so that you can successfully characterize and understand any colloid dispersion-based product and application.
The First Principle STEP-Technology® integrated with the analytical centrifugation platform to characterize colloidal dispersions. No dilution required.
SPLS-Technology®
The SPLS-Technology® (Single Particle Light-Scattering) allows you to measure particle size and particle count of individual particles in nano- and microparticles of suspensions and emulsions.
The SPLS-Technology® has a specially designed flow cell that feeds particles into a hydrodynamic flow channel. The particles pass single-file through a laser beam-illuminated cross-section, where they are sized and counted—one particle at a time.
The SPLS-Technology® records each particle's forward and sideward laser light scattering profile – one particle at a time.
While the SPLS-Technology® is similar to flow cytometry, it has several distinct advantages.
One of the unique features of the measurement flow cell is its ability to change the shape of the hydrodynamic flow channel.
Furthermore, the volume-calibrated sample flow allows for accurate measurement of particle concentration.
These design features ensure that each particle is counted individually, resulting in a particle counting precision greater than 98 percent - which is industry-leading.
The practical user benefit is that you can accurately count all particles in your dispersion.
You can also accurately analyze multimodal and broadly dispersed real-world particles in suspensions and emulsions and determine the smallest particle size differences down to the nanometer range.
Nanoparticle and Microparticle Optical Particle Counter and Particle Sizer
Adhesion Science
If you want to advance your adhesion testing capabilities, we also offer the CAT-Technology for demanding research adhesion and cohesion applications.
Please see our dedicated website for our adhesion and cohesion analyzer LUMiFrac®.