Globally, there are more than 50,000 disperse intermediate and final products that have special, functional product properties thanks to their dispersity. For example, the release of active ingredients in a pharmaceutical drug formulation can be controlled through the fineness of the active ingredient particles. The setting behaviour and the strength of cement or the speed of chemical reactions also directly depend on the fineness and the related specific surface of the particles involved. Flow behaviour, abrasion resistance, dust behaviour, packing density or solubility are further examples of the countless properties of disperse systems that can be specifically controlled via the particle size or shape and their distribution.
The physical properties of individual particles (e.g. size or shape) or particle collectives (e.g. particle size distributions) are therefore frequently targets or benchmarks of product design in development and production. The particle measurement technology provides reliable characterisation of these physical properties and the provision of appropriate parameters for assessing the quality of an intermediate or final product. The applications of particle measurement technology are widely dispersed and highly heterogeneous, e.g.
- in fields of application ranging from the treatment of mineral and metallic raw materials, to the manufacturing and processing of pigments, construction materials or metal powders, of polymer, fine and specialty chemicals, as well as regulated GMP environments in the pharmaceutical and food industry;
- in the analysis of various dry and wet dispersed systems of powders, fibres and granules, to emulsions, suspensions and slurries, as well as sprays and aerosols;
- in engineering processes of particle synthesis and the mechanical unit operations to change
(a) the particle size or particle shape by crushing or agglomerating or
(b) the composition of particle collectives by separating or mixing.
Here you will find various introductions into the world of particle measurement technology that provide an impression of the respective user perspective. In the context of illustrative applications, suitable measurement configurations for the characterisation of particle size, particle shape and distribution are presented – for use in a laboratory, automated laboratory environments or directly in the process.
