Brookhaven Instruments
Brookhaven Instruments Corporation is a Nova Instruments company. Established in the late 1960s, Brookhaven Instruments pioneered modern techniques in characterizing nanoparticles, proteins, and polymers using light scattering techniques such as dynamic, static, electrophoretic, and phase analysis for: particle size, zeta potential, molecular mass and absolute molar mass analysis.
Product designs started when their founders were postdoctoral students in the late 1960s. Today, Brookhaven Instruments uses a variety of techniques including static, dynamic, electrophoretic, phase analysis light scattering and specialized centrifuge technology to become one of the major players in the light scattering instrumentation market.
Operations
Brookhaven Instruments is in the Materials Analysis sector. Specializing in protein, polymer and particle characterization, with techniques in zeta potential, molecular weight, chromatography and dynamic light scattering. These systems have applications across many industries including Polymer and Protein sciences, Pharmaceuticals, the Painting and Coatings industries, Research Institutions and Food Processing just to name a few.
Work with Nasa
Microgravity experiments performed aboard the US Space Shuttle Columbia helped physicists and chemical engineers at Princeton University and NASA understand how the properties of engineering materials are determined by their atomic structure. Using equipment supplied by Brookhaven Instruments Corporation in New York State, provided the key to solving fundamental problems in condensed matter physics, and lead to revolutionary new "designer" materials for the manufacturing industry.
They flew their apparatus, called PHaSE (Physics of Hard Spheres Experiment), into space in April 1997. It was one of a number of projects participating in NASA's Microgravity Science Laboratory-1 mission, aboard the Columbia. The long-duration microgravity environment provided by the shuttle made it an ideal platform for the study.
At the heart of the PHaSE investigations were two Brookhaven BI-9000AT Digital Correlators which interpreted the data from the light scattering apparatus, sampling the signal at intervals as short as 25 billionths of a second.
"We have been working closely with Brookhaven Instruments Corporation for well over a decade now," says Dr William Meyer, of the Advanced Technology Development group, a division of GRC that contributed to PHaSE.
Main Products
Brookhaven has an extensive range of products for particle characterization.
- 90Plus—Particle Size Analyzer. Based on the principles of Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) the 90Plus analyzes sample from less than 1 nm to 6 µm.
- ZetaPALS -- Zeta potential Analyzer. The ZetaPALS utilizes phase analysis light scattering to determine the electrophoretic mobility of charged, colloidal suspensions. Phase analysis light scattering produces more highly accurate sample measurements versus traditional light scattering methods.
- ZetaPlus—Zeta Potential Analyzer. The ZetaPlus measures complete electrophoretic mobility distributions in seconds including multimodal and bimodal.
- BI-MwA—Molecular Weight Analyzer. The BI-MwA is a multiangle light scattering detector suitable for Size-exclusion chromatography(SEC), Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) or stand alone use. It determines the absolute molecular weight of proteins and polymers.
- BI-200SM—Research Goniometer and Full Laser Light Scattering System. The BI-200SM is a stepping motor controlled instrument for multiangle light scattering measurements. This system can measure in both Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) and Static Light Scattering (SLS).
- BI-XDC—X-Ray Disk Centrifuge, provides both centrifugal and gravitational sedimentation with an X-ray technology to give error free, fast and accurate high-resolution size distributions across the "one-micron" transition region. Particle size distribution range from 10 nanometers right up to 100 microns.
- NanoBrook Omni-- Particle Size Analyzer and Zeta Potential Analyzer. Combines functions of different machines into one.
References
1. Maisie J. Joralemon, Rachel K. O'Reilly, Craig J. Hawker, and Karen L. Wooley, "Shell Click-Crosslinked (SCC) Nanoparticles: A New Methodology for Synthesis and Orthogonal Functionalization," J. AM. CHEM. SOC. 2005, 127, 16892-16899.
2. Giuseppe Battaglia and Anthony J. Ryan, "Bilayers and Interdigitation in Block Copolymer Vesicles," J. AM. CHEM. SOC. 2005, 127, 8757-8764.
3. Fuke Wang, Ming-Yong Han, Khine Yi Mya, Yubo Wang, and Yee-Hing Lai, "Aggregation-Driven Growth of Size-Tunable Organic Nanoparticles Using Electronically Altered Conjugated Polymers," J. AM. CHEM. SOC. 2005, 127, 10350-10355.
4. Guojun Liu, Xiaohu Yan, Zhao Li, Jiayun Zhou, and Scott Duncan, "End Coupling of Block Copolymer Nanotubes to Nanospheres," J. AM. CHEM. SOC. 2003, 125, 14039-14045.
5. Juan A. Gonzalez-Leon, Metin H. Acar, Sang-Woog Ryu, Anne-Valerie G. Ruzette, and Anne M. Mayes, "Low-Temperature Processing of 'Baroplastics' by Pressure-Induced Flow", NATURE 2003, 426, 424-428.
6. Wei-Chun Chin, Monica V. Orellana and Pedro Verdugo, "Spontaneous Assembly of Marine Dissolved Organic Matter into Polymer Gels," NATURE 1998, 391, 568-572.
7. Ziv Reich, J. Jay Boniface, Daniel S. Lyons, Nina Borochov, Ellen J. Wachtel, and Mark M. Davis, "Ligand-Specific Oligomerization of T-cell receptor Molecules" NATURE 1997, 387, 617-620.
8. J. S. Martinez, G. P. Zhang, P. D. Holt, H.-T. Jung, C. J. Carrano, M. G. Haygood, Alison Butler, "Self-Assembling Amphiphilic Siderophores from Marine Bacteria," SCIENCE 2000, 287, 1245-1247.
9. Zhibin Guan, P. M. Cotts, E. F. McCord, S. J. McLain, "Chain Walking: A New Strategy to Control Polymer Topology," SCIENCE 1999, 283, 2059-2062.
10. Improved Techniques for Particle Size Determination by Quasi-Elastic Light Scattering by I. D. Morrison, E. G. Grabowski, and C. A. Herb, Langmuir 1 (1985), 496-501.
11. Characterization of Food Colloids by Phase Analysis Light Scattering, S. Vanapalli and J.N. Coupland, Food Hydrocolloids, 14(2000), 315-317.
12. http://ipp.nasa.gov/innovation/Innovation35/Cataracts.html
13. http://www.brookhaveninstruments.com/literature/pdf/TurboCorr/SpaceShuttleBI.pdf
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