Supramolecular NanoChemistry and Materials Group

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Spray Dryers

NANOUP Dryers Spray Dryers

We use the MiniSpray Dryer B290 and the Nano Spray Dryer B90 as an efficient, safe technique for drying small amounts of aqueous and organic solutions to powder (with dimensions ranging from the micro- to the nanometer length scale) with high yields in a very gentle process. For example, the isolation of highly effective pharmaceutical agents is possible due to the gentle drying of natural products. Spray Dryers are also used for the micro- and nanoencapsulation of different high sensitive substances. Importantly, the spray-drying process is fast, continuous and scalable.

The Nano Spray Dryer B-90 is particularly suited to the needs of the pharmaceutical and nanotech markets. These areas show the newest application trends, focusing on effective formulations of complex and valuable drugs (highly active pharmaceutical ingredients) and nanoparticulates, allowing to work with minimal quantities (ml, mg).

In our lab, we use Spray Dryers for:

  • Spray drying sensitive materials from solutions to powder.
  • Micro- and nanonization of a wide variety of materials.
  • Drying small amounts of suspensions with high yields.
  • Avoiding agglomeration.
  • Spray crystallization.
  • Micro- and nanoencapsulation of a wide variety of substances.
  • Coatings.
  • Generation of nanoparticles.
  • Etc.
Among the applications, we can highlight:
  • Stabilization of vaccines in matrix materials.
  • Microencapsulation of liposomes.
  • Encapsulation of hydrophilic nanoparticles in hydrophobic carrier materials.
  • Therapeutic carrier materials (insulin, growth hormones).
  • Porous drug carriers from nanoparticle suspensions.
  • Nanocapsules of polymers.
  • Typically applied drug delivery systems: trehalose, lactose, PVA, chitosan, cyclodextrin, PLGA, gelatin...
  • Fine metal particles for novel catalysts.
  • Fine magnetic powders for electronic storage media.
  • High performance ceramics with high specific surface area.
  • Oxide particles for textiles as UV absorbers.
  • Encapsulation of aromas, flavours or perfumes.
  • Etc.

Nscriptor® DPNWriter® Dip-Pen Nanolithography System

DPNNscriptor® DPN Writer® Dip-Pen Nanolithography System

Introduced by Mirkin's group in 1999, is especially useful for chemists because it allows writing nanoscale patterns of molecular "ink" onto surfaces, via a coated SPM tip. We use Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN) to pattern alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) onto gold surfaces with sub-100 nm resolution and registration, and these nanostructures can be further used as molecular templates for creating metal and semiconductor nanostructures, biological nanoarrays (e.g. proteins, DNA, and viruses), and arrays of different nanoscale building blocks (e.g. carbon nanotubes, nanoparticles, etc.). DPN also allows the direct deposition and location of a great variety of species, such as proteins, DNA, polymers and nanoparticles, on different surfaces.