Contract R&D and Manufacturing

NanoComposix is a world leader in nanomaterial research and development, manufacturing, and processing. Since 2004, we have developed innovative solutions to meet the specific product requirements of our customers in fields ranging from material manufacturing to medical diagnostics. Project scale ranges from custom fabrication requests to collaborative development projects where we solve R&D and scale-up challenges for the commercial launch of nano-enabled products.

Capabilities

At nanoComposix we have completed over a thousand custom projects ranging from self-healing aerospace composites to targeted cancer drug delivery.  In almost every case we’ve been most successful when we have brought the customer’s end metric in-house.  By understanding and having the analytical measurements necessary to determine if both the nanoparticle fabrication and integration are successful, we can rapidly iterate the nanoparticle chemistry and processing to achieve your goal.  Below are just a few examples of our areas of expertise – please contact us to find out more about our capabilities and expertise.

SYNTHETIC FABRICATION EXAMPLES

• Scaled production runs up to 10,000 liters
• Core/shell nanoparticle fabrication and functionalization
• Plasmonic nanoparticle engineering for vis/near-IR absorbers and scatters
• Transfer to/from polar/non-polar solvents
• Magnetic and fluorescent incorporation
• High throughput concentration and processing using cross flow filtration
• High temperature processing and calcination
• Biofunctionalization and targeting

NANOPARTICLE INTEGRATION EXAMPLES

• Thin film processing of nanoparticles
• Photocatalytic composites
• Self-healing carbon fiber composites
• Nanoparticle diagnostics (e.g. lateral flow)
• Surface enhanced raman spectroscopy (SERS) based sensors
• High efficiency solar cells
• Magnetic DNA-based tracer technologies

Facilities and Equipment

Over the years we’ve assembled an extensive set of analytical and manufacturing equipment that allows us to rapidly prototype solutions for our customers.  Our 14,000 square foot state-of-the-art laboratory has a wide array of manufacturing and analytical equipment including a 800 square foot ISO 7 cleanroom and various labs containing the following equipment:

OPTICAL EQUIPMENT

• 2 dark field/bright field/fluorescent Olympus BX40/41 microscopes
• Richardson dark field microscope
• 2 Agilent 8453 UV-Visible spectrophotometers (200–1100 nm)
• Jasco V670 UV-VIS-IR spectrophotometers (200–2300 nm)
• Ocean optics spectrophotometers with integrating spheres for reflectance
• 2 Hitachi F-4500 fluorescent spectrophotometers
• Thermo Nicolet 6700 FTIR
• Jasco FTIR
• SpectraMax GEMI UV-Visible plate reader
• SpectraMax 250 Fluorescent plate reader
• Drick haze meter
• Custom Raman spectrophotometer with 632 nm HeNe (22 mW), with 90 degree collection using a F2 lense/optical fiber coupled to a thermo-electric cooled Raman spectrometer (AvaSpec3648TEC, Avantes) after removal of Rayleigh scattering using a long pass filter (Semrock).  The spectrometer has a 25 mm slit and order sorting filter for reduction of second order effects, and the grating provides a usable range from 640-840 nm with a resolution of 0.25 nm (FWHM).

NANOPARTICLE CHARACTERIZATION

• Malvern Zetasizer Nano ZS dynamic light scattering/zeta potential instrument
• CPS disc centrifuge analyzer DC24000
• Malvern Nanosight NTA
• JEOL 1010 100kV transmission electron microscope equipped with a 2K x 2K XR41B AMT digital camera

OTHER ANALYTICAL

• Thermo Scientific Xseries 2 ICP-MS with automated sample handling is housed in a separate room along with a MARS SX microwave digester
• Pyros Kinetix Flex endotoxin analyzer
• Bruker Autoflex II MALDI-TOF
• Mathis TCi thermal conductivity meter
• Micromeritic BET surface area analyzer
• Varian tap density meter
• Tantec Contact Angle Instrument
• Mettler liquid density meter
• Oriel Merlin pyrometers
• Brookfield viscometer
• Balances (microgram to kilogram)

CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS

• Purtec 500 L per day 18.2 MOhm purified water system (circulating/UV)
• 40 linear feet of vented fume hoods
• 3 biosafety cabinets
• 3 laminar flow cabinets
• 2 Becton Ultra centrifuges (L80, XL-70)
• Sorval Avanti J-25 high volume centrifuge
• Centritech continuous centrifuge
• Buchi B-290 spray dryer
• 3 FTS Dura-Stop freeze dryers
• Cup horn, probe and bath sonicators
• Buchi rotary evaporator

PROCESSING

• 2 ultra centrifuges, 2 high speed, 10+ other benchtop
• Microfluidics microfluidizer
• Super critical dryer
• LabRAM acoustic mixer
• 2 VAC Atmosphere glove boxes
• eBraun glove box with attached 600°C oven
• Thermocraft furnaces
• 5 Yamato convection drying ovens
• Instron 100KN load frame
• Trotec laser cutter
• Chemat Technology spin coater
• Fusion UV Systems curing station
• Tormach mill

LATERAL FLOW

• <20% humidity dry room
• Imagene Isoflow dispenser
• Kinematic 2360 guillotine cutter
• Kinematic laminator
• Qiagen, cellmic, i-calQ readers

CELL CULTURE

• BSL2 room
• Sterile biosafety hood
• Incubator
• Autoclave
• Temperature controlled shakers