Determination of the size distribution of monodesperse and bidisperse mixtures of spherical particles in the nanometer and submicron size range by applying cumulant analysis and contin algorithm in dynamic light scattering

Determination of particle size is one of the major needs in the industry and biotechnology. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) is a widely used technique for determining size distribution of spherical particle in nanometer and submicron size range. In this method, there are different algorithms for determining the size and size distribution of particles, which are selected according to the required accuracy as well as the sample. In this paper, a review of the theory of DLS and commonly used algorithms to determine particle size, have been carried out. The accuracy and performance range of the two common Cumulant analysis and Contin algorithm have been experimentally investigated, by using the wide range of sizes (20-900 nanometer) of standard spherical polystyrene particles. It is shown that both algorithms results are quite consistent with the manufacturer’s values for diameter of particles. Since most of the samples in the more common situation are not uniform particles with a narrow size distribution, mixtures of two standard particles of different sizes were studied by both algorithms to test the performance of DLS in non-standard samples. Method of Cumulant reports one size that is not consistent with the size of any particles in the sample. However, the polidispersity index (PDI) indicates that the sample size distribution is very wide. Method of Contin reports only one size that is not also consistent with the size of any particles, but, it is closer to the larger one. The results of both algorithms indicate that the DLS fails to determine size distribution in the mixed samples.