Owing to the increased application of nanoparticles in engineering industries, the development of separation techniques to isolate nanoparticles grew as important as the one to isolate micro‐ or macro‐sized particles. Centrifugation, filtration, and precipitation are the common processes used to separate nanoparticles from a suspension. Interestingly, these processes work best if the nanoparticles are preflocculated into a larger cluster. Flocculation of nanoparticles may involve a complex mechanism affected by the physicochemical and molecular properties of the flocculant. A review of the effects induced by these factors on the flocculation of nanoparticles is given. The applications of advanced flocculation approaches as well as the research gaps in this research area are discussed.

中文翻译：

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絮凝分离纳米级颗粒

由于纳米颗粒在工程行业中的应用越来越广泛，因此分离纳米颗粒的分离技术的发展与分离微米或宏观颗粒的技术一样重要。离心，过滤和沉淀是从悬浮液中分离纳米颗粒的常用方法。有趣的是，如果将纳米颗粒预絮凝成更大的团簇，则这些过程效果最佳。纳米颗粒的絮凝可能涉及受絮凝剂的物理化学和分子特性影响的复杂机制。综述了这些因素对纳米颗粒絮凝的影响。讨论了先进的絮凝方法的应用以及该研究领域的研究空白。