Flow field-flow fractionation (flow FFF) was employed todetermine the mean diameter
and the size distribution ofacrylate latex materials having diameters ranging from0.05 to 1
![](/images/entities/mgr.gif)
m. Mean diameters of the samplesdeterminedby flow FFF are in good agreement with those obtainedfrom photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS). Scanningelectron microscopy (SEM) yielded a mean diameter thatis about 20% lower than those obtained from flow FFF orPCS, probably due to the shrinkage of particles duringsample drying
and high-vacuum measurements. It wasfound that flow FFF is particularly useful for the determination of particle size distributions of latex materialshaving broad size distributions. Flow FFF separatesparticles according to their sizes
and yields an elutioncurve that directly represents the particle sizedistributionof the sample. In PCS, measurements had to berepeatedat more than one scattering angle to obtain an accuratemean diameter for the latex having a broad size distribution. Flow FFF was fast (less than 12 min of run time)
and showed an excellent repeatability in measuring themean diameter with ±5% relative error.