White Paper

Powders play a very important role in many different areas of healthcare, most importantly in dentistry and orthopaedic materials, where they become either coatings or 3D structures. As many powder materials exist as suspensions in the early stages of their manufacturing, powder surface chemistry (and associated charge) can strongly influence suspensions’ rheological properties, and so the quality of subsequent processing. This can have dramatic effects on the quality of any end products and can lead to failure of these products. 

Given that powder surface charge is so critical, zeta potential becomes a crucial measurement for characterising and then optimising suspension behaviour. Zeta potential is essentially the energy required to shear a particle and associated ions away from a bulk solution. From these values, the stability of the system can be established: whether the particles are well dispersed and stable, or flocculated and unstable. 

This paper will discuss the theory of zeta potential, and how it can be measured and controlled. The particular advantages of using the ZetaProbe® apparatus available at Lucideon will also be discussed.