Instrumental analytical techniques for physicochemical characterization of bio-nanomaterials

Nanotechnology has many applications in the medical field including drug delivery, biological devices, nanoelectronics, biosensors, nanocomposites, and biomaterials. Nanomaterial characterization is essential for the development and the utilization of many nanosystems for certain applications. The characteristic physicochemical properties of nanomaterials are important for their specific applications, which highlighted the importance of numerous characterization techniques. Nanomaterial characterization is needed to study their various physical and chemical properties, e.g., optical properties, size, structure, surface area, composition, morphology, oxidation state, electrochemistry. Usually, many techniques are used at the same time for determining all related nanomaterial properties for certain applications. Therefore, details of various characterization methods such as atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), mass spectrometry (MS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), circular dichroism (CD), X-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), zeta potential (ZP), Raman scattering (RS), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), and infrared spectroscopy (IR) are discussed.