Abstract
The development of a novel instrument for the in situ measurement of particle size distributions in the size range of 3–200μm is presented. The system uses high magnification optics, housed in a stainless steel probe, which can be inserted into a process stream or vessel, where images of the dispersed phase particles are recorded. A pulsed light source is used to freeze the motion of the particles in the field of view and present an image of the dispersion onto a charge-coupled device camera chip. The images are digitized and stored for later processing. Automated image analysis routines have been developed for extracting particle size information from the acquired images. An extensive validation of the instrument has been performed for spherical particles, which has produced several important findings. First, a size bias in the depth of field (DOF) exists which favors larger particles. An experiment procedure was developed for the direct measurement of DOF size biases. Additionally, the behavior of the instrument is dependent on the environmental conditions, such as dispersed phase concentration and the difference in index of refraction between continuous phase and dispersed phase.
Published Version
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