Electromigration separation methodologies for the characterization of nanoparticles and the evaluation of their behaviour in biological systems

Abstract The use of nanoparticles (NPs) for biomedical applications implies the knowledge of different physicochemical parameters in physiologically relevant media. Electromigration separation methods have demonstrated to be powerful analytical tools for the separation and whole characterization of such NPs as well as to help in the design and control of NPs synthesis and surface modification processes. The different working modes exploited at this date to obtain complementary information about colloidal NP properties such as size, ζ-potential, surface charge density, grafting rates and binding parameters as well as their colloidal stability in different media are reviewed in this work. We put particular emphasis on the electromigration separation methods developed for NPs used in biomedical sciences that help to predict the behaviour of such objects in the biological systems. Finally some perspectives and research lines envisaged in this domain are proposed.