Nanosuspensions are a critical material type found in everything from pharmaceuticals, to inks, paints, and fine chemicals used in advanced manufacturing. The accurate and continuous measurement of nanosuspensions and the size of nanoparticles is critical for efficient manufacturing processes and ultimately the performance and safety of materials. PAT4Nano aims to develop tools to enable the continuous, rapid, and reliable measurement of nanoparticles to facilitate the more efficient, less costly, and accurate manufacture of nanomaterials.

In PAT4Nano the consortium end user partners, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Agfa-Gevaert, and Johnson Matthey, are working on diverse applications in pharmaceuticals, inks/pigments, and materials for catalysis, batteries, and glass manufacture. One specific example of where nanoparticles play an important role is for some pharmaceutical drugs where the size and characteristics of nanoparticles can be used to produce more effective therapies.

The project is unique in that the end users of the PAT4Nano technologies (Agfa, Janssen, and Johnson Matthey) will be working in very close collaboration with the technology providers (Malvern and IP-LSP) and research centres (NUIG, UL, TNO, and Fraunhofer) to produce the best solutions which can be deployed in a manufacturing environment.