PARTICLE SIZE MEASUREMENT

Part of a series on materials which exist in the form of a disperse system such as powders, pastes, slurries, emulsions and aerosols this is a survey of particle size measurement, which has been revised to include a new chapter concerning on-line particle size analysis and descriptions of recently developed instrumentation. The text will benefit chemical and process engineers concerned with all aspects of powder technology. The industrial applications of this new science are far reaching. The size of the fine particles affects the properties of a powder in many important ways. For example, it determines the setting time of cement, the hiding power of pigments and the activity of chemical catalysts; the taste of food, the potency of drugs and the sintering shrinkage of metallurgical powders are also strongly affected by the size of the particles of which powder is made up. Particle size measurement is to powder technology as thermometry is to the study of heat and is in the same state of flux as the thermometry was in its early days.