Dear all,
I'm going through a hell of a lot of problem to purify my @Ge-Nps, at a scientific acceptable standard.
-Centrifuge works, but not so good and usually, I end up with cluster
-extraction with orthogonal solvents does not clean them good enough for TEM.
now we're thinking for more radical approaches, like columns or even electrophoresis. Obviously also these methods present challenges, such as we don't have the necessary equipment, and I'm kind in a hurry to meet reviewers deadlines.
some time ago I stumble over this paper:
- https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12274-014-0527-7.pdf
in which they prepare a 3 phase system, in my case apolar/polar/apolar, centrifuge and basically use the enhanced g-force to drive the Np from the top phase to the bottom, leaving everything that is not "heavy" in the top phase, while everything heavy will pass through the apolar phase (getting washed in the meanwhile) and land eventually in the bottom phase where it will redisperse.
I've to dissolve long chain amines such as Oleylamine and Hexadecylamine, which likes apolar solvents.
I've been trying with top phase hexane/middle MeOH/bottom CHCl3, this showed some interesting behavior, only problem CHCl3 is heavier than the amines themselves, so if I centrifuge, the amine just goes somewhere in between the middle and the bottom without leaving the polar phase.
I've been trying already different combination of solvents available to me, but I cannot come up with another ternary system which will allow me to replace the chloroform with something lighter.
Does anybody have any suggestion of which solvent I could possibly use to form a system Apolar/polar/apolar that could solubilize in the top and bottom long chain amines?
Thanks in advance
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