Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are often used as colloidal carriers in numerous applications owing to their low-cost and size-controlled preparation as well as their straightforward surface functionalization with thiol containing molecules forming self-assembling monolayers (SAM). The quantification of the ligand density of such modified GNPs is technically challenging, yet of utmost importance for quality control in many applications. In this contribution, a new method for the determination of the surface coverage of GNPs with thiol containing ligands is proposed. It makes use of the measurement of the gold-to-sulfur (Au/S) ratio by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP–MS) and its dependence on the nanoparticle diameter. The simultaneous ICP–MS measurement of gold and sulfur was carefully validated and found to be a robust method with a relative standard uncertainty of lower than 10%. A major advantage of this method is the independence from sample preparation; for example, sample loss during the washing steps is not affecting the results. To demonstrate the utility of the straightforward method, GNPs of different diameters were synthesized and derivatized on the surface with bifunctional (lipophilic) ω-mercapto-alkanoic acids and (hydrophilic) mercapto-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)n-carboxylic acids, respectively, by self-assembling monolayer (SAM) formation. Thereby, a size-independent but ligand-chain length-dependent ligand density was found. The surface coverage increases from 4.3 to 6.3 molecules nm–2 with a decrease of ligand chain length from 3.52 to 0.68 nm. Furthermore, no significant difference between the surface coverage of hydrophilic and lipophilic ligands with approximately the same ligand length was found, indicating that sterical hindrance is of more importance than, for example, intermolecular strand interactions of Van der Waals forces as claimed in other studies.

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are popular colloidal substrates in various sensor, imaging, and nanomedicine applications. In separation science, they have raised some interest as a support for sample preparation. Reasons for their popularity are their low cost, ability for size-controlled synthesis with well-defined narrow nanoparticle size distributions, as well as straightforward surface functionalization by self-assembling (thiol-containing) molecules on the surface, which allows flexible introduction of functionalities for the selective capture of analytes. Most commonly, the method of first choice for size determination is dynamic light scattering (DLS). However, DLS has some serious shortcomings, and results from DLS may be misleading. For this reason, in this contribution several distinct complementary nanoparticle sizing methodologies were utilized and compared to characterize citrate-capped GNPs of different diameters in the range of 13-26 nm. Weaknesses and strengths of DLS, transmission electron microscopy, asymmetrical-flow field-flow fractionation and nanoelectrospray gas-phase electrophoretic mobility molecular analysis are discussed and the results comparatively assessed. Furthermore, the distinct GNPs were characterized by measuring their zeta-potential and surface plasmon resonance spectra. Overall, the combination of methods for GNP characterization gives a more realistic and comprehensive picture of their real physicochemical properties, (hydrodynamic) diameter, and size distribution.

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Phosphorylated carbohydrates are important intracellular metabolites and thus of prime interest in metabolomics research. Complications in their analysis arise from the existence of structural isomers that do have similar fragmentation patterns in MS/MS and are hard to resolve chromatographically. Herein, we present selective methods for the liquid chromatographic separation of sugar phosphates, such as hexose and pentose phosphates, 2- and 3-phosphoglycerate, dihydroxyacetone phosphate and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, as well as glucosamine 1- and 6-phosphate utilizing mixed-mode chromatography with reversed-phase/weak anion-exchangers and a charged aerosol detector. The best results were obtained when the reversed-phase/weak anion-exchanger column was operated under hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography elution conditions. The effects of various chromatographic parameters were examined and are discussed on the basis of a simple stoichiometric displacement model for explaining ion-exchange processes. Employed acidic conditions have led to the complete separation of α- and β-anomers of glucose 6-phosphate at low temperature. The anomers coeluted in a single peak at elevated temperatures (>40°C) (peak coalescence), while at intermediate temperatures on-column interconversion with a plateau in-between resolved anomer peaks was observed with apparent reaction rate constants between 0.1 and 27.8×10(-4) s(-1). Dynamic HPLC under specified conditions enabled to investigate mutarotation of phosphorylated carbohydrates, their interconversion kinetics, and energy barriers for interconversion. A complex mixture of six hexose phosphate structural isomers could be resolved almost completely.