Hydrodynamic chromatography for the characterization of inorganic nanoparticles

The continuing growth of nanomaterials (NMs) as both technological advances and potential safety/environmental threats pushes up demand for analytical platforms able to provide reliable information on their complex physicochemical features. This chapter presents an overview of hydrodynamic chromatography (HDC) and its connection to size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) for the separation and characterization of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs). The theoretical fundaments of these techniques are outlined as a starting point to introduce their key analytical figures of merit. Extensive discussion is dedicated to the practical implementation of HDC from chromatographic hardware designs to combined/coupled instrumental set-ups and operational keystones in method development. The applicative potential of HDC/SEC especially embodied by integrated multi-detector approaches is presented with examples from the recent literature