Scientists in the Powder Technology Laboratory at the Ecole Polytechnic Federal de Lausanne technical university in Switzerland continue to turn to Brookhaven Instruments to help them with their work on powder synthesis and characterization. Dr Paul Bowen, in the laboratory, explained: “I find Brookhaven’s instruments to be well conceived from a theoretical standpoint and scientifically well thought out. Brookhaven tries to create systems that are a little bit different but that address the problems that scientists like myself have.”
“At present, 60 to 70 percent of our work is on powder synthesis and a significant part of this involves characterizing different powders to see if they really are what we want them to be. Our research is largely applications orientated and many projects are conducted in collaboration with industry. For example, we have been developing a coating for inkjet papers to enhance color quality using very fine 20 nm ceramic powders in a 40 micron surface coating. This project was one of the reasons we first bought an XDC X-ray disc centrifuge from Brookhaven because it was the only instrument we found that could reliably get down to the 20 nm range. Similarly, our Brookhaven ZetaPALS instrument is also working well in the 10 to 100 nm range and we are approaching the 2 to 10 nm range, where mobility is low and size is not so easy to determine.”
Paul concluded: “I look at particle size measurement in a bit more detail than most people and try to push it towards its limits, so I like to be able to discuss the software and exactly how to analyze the data. The Brookhaven representatives are scientists at heart and, as such, are keen to solve problems.”
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