The Role of Nanoanalytics in the Development of Organic-Inorganic Nanohybrids—Seeing Nanomaterials as They Are

Abstract

The functional properties of organic-inorganic (O-I) hybrids can be easily tuned by combining system components and parameters, making this class of novel nanomaterials a crucial element in various application fields. Unfortunately, the manufacturing of organic-inorganic nanohybrids still suffers from mechanical instability and insufficient synthesis reproducibility. The control of the composition and structure of nanosurfaces themselves is a specific analytical challenge and plays an important role in the future reproducibility of hybrid nanomaterials surface properties and response. Therefore, appropriate and sufficient analytical methodologies and technical guidance for control of their synthesis, characterization and standardization of the final product quality at the nanoscale level should be established. In this review, we summarize and compare the analytical merit of the modern analytical methods, viz. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), RAMAN spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and several mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques, that is, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), single particle ICP-MS (sp-ICP-MS), laser ablation coupled ICP-MS (LA-ICP-MS), time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC-MS) utilized for characterization of O-I nanohybrids. Special attention is given to laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS) as a reliable nanoanalytical platform for characterization of O-I hybrid nanomaterials, their quality, design verification and validation.

Application of Organic-Inorganic Hybrids in Chemical Analysis, Bio- and Environmental Monitoring

“…Instead, a strong adaption or optimization of the conventional methods and development of the novel methodological approaches is highly desirable. Nanoanalytics, as a global scientific approach, play a great role in this process [96,97].…”

“…Later on, the main concepts, elements, and peculiarities of the nanoanalytics were re-reviewed and summarized by Prof. Shtykov et al [100]. Recently, the role of nanoanalytics and nanoanalysis as a tool in the development of the modern OInH was highlighted [97]. It is important to stress that two different conceptual strategies are distinguished in nanoanalytics; the first one refers to the methods applied for studying of elemental composition of nano-based hybrids.…”

“…Another one and more seldomly used strategy in nanoanalytics is to combine several functions in one methodology [98,99]. Thus, the tandem of several techniques and appropriate optimized methodologies, i.e., scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), etc., can be readily applied at once for analysis of OInH to get closer insights on the nature of the redistricted analytical signals from the targeted nano-objects [97].…”

“…Therefore, the analyst working with OIH/OInH has to use and optimize a set/tandem of several techniques of molecular analysis and then summarize their analytical merit. Thus, typically the tandem between Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), RAMAN spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and mass spectrometry (MS)-based techniques can be applied [97]. However, these methods are unable to visualize/image single biomolecules or a targeted polymer with appropriate accuracy at It should be noted that measuring at the nanoscale is a technological and scientific challenge that makes metrology at the nanoscale special.…”

“…To address this issue, recently, a novel nanoanalytical platform for characterization and validation of OInH, including nanobiosensors based on the laser-desorption ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS) method was proposed [97]. The workflow of the approach is summarized in Figure 11.…”