The JRC releases new certified reference material for nanoparticle size and shape analysis (ERM®-FD103)

The JRC of the European Commission (EC) has produced its first Certified Reference Material (CRM) for quality control of measurements of nanoparticle size and shape parameters by electron microscopy.

The CRM (ERM-FD103), which has been developed to support the implementation of the EC nanomaterial definition, consists of titanium dioxide nanorods dispersed in butanol.

Presently, nanomaterials are applied in a variety of products. To provide a common understanding of the term ‘nanomaterial’, the European Commission adopted a Recommendation (2011/696/EU) on the definition of nanomaterial in 2011. A threshold, based on particle size and particle fraction, forms the core of this definition.

Over the last decade, the JRC has produced a set of four CRMs for quality control of nanoparticle size analysis methods. These CRMs, which consist of suspensions of near-spherical silica nanoparticles of different sizes, have become important metrology tools during the development and validation of nanoparticle size analysis methods, and they are a benchmark for ensuring the comparability of particle size results worldwide.

In practice, nanoparticles do not always have a regular (e.g. spherical) shape. Instead, they often have either irregular shapes or peculiar shapes tailored to a particular application or function. The size of simple regularly shaped particles can be readily defined by measuring the length of the particles. On the other hand, the size of non-spherical particles, such as rods, is less defined because each different external dimension yields a different size result.

In supporting the measurement community with metrology tools that enable the further development of methods for size analysis of irregular particles, a next generation CRM of non-spherical nanoparticles has been developed.

Read the full EU science hub announcement