Swiss start-up launches the world’s smallest nanoparticle detector

The now commercially available Naneos Partector is small, lightweight, robust and affordable. It measures the lung-deposited surface area (LDSA) of the nanoparticles, which is the most relevant physical metric for health effects. Wide particle concentration and particle size ranges ensure that the Partector can be used for nearly all nanoparticle measurements.

There is a wide range of possible applications, including

• Personal exposure monitoring: Because the Partector measures all nanoparticles it can be used to measure exposure to engineered nanoparticles, environmental tobacco smoke, welding fumes, traffic-related nanoparticles or anything else. It is ideally suited for occupational safety and health studies.  
• Workplace surveillance: The partector can be used to monitor nanoparticle levels in a laboratory or nanoparticle production facility 24/7. It can sound an alarm, and with its data log, users can quickly check when high concentrations occurred.
• Environmental monitoring: Because the Partector is small, light and cheap it is the ideal instrument for studies where nanoparticle concentrations are to be measured with high spatial resolution. By applying multiple instruments simultaneously, users can measure transport phenomena and particle concentration distributions. By combining Partector data with GPS data, measurements can easily visualized in Google Earth.

Naneos is a spin-off company of the institute for aerosol and sensor technology of the university of applied sciences northwestern Switzerland, and builds on a decade of experience in nanoparticle instrumentation development. The company was founded in 2012 and is based at the Technopark Aargau in Windisch.