ESTIMATION OF PARTICLE-SIZE DISTRIBUTIONS FROM TURBIDIMETRIC MEASUREMENTS

A method is described in which simple measurements of the turbidity of a suspension of fine particles can be used to obtain realistic estimates of the mean and range of particle sizes present. By assuming that the actual distribution can be fitted to a simple, two-parameter function such as the log normal, the values of the parameters can be estimated from turbidity data obtained at two wavelengths. Experimentally, it has been found that for dispersions of several different minerals, the estimation procedure yields results which agree remarkably well with direct measurements using centrifugal sedimentation. Simulation studies, of the effect of significant deviations from the proposed log normal form, Indicate that the estimation procedure yields results which are reasonably representative of the central part of the distribution. There is no evidence of strong bias toward the tails of the distributions. © 1979, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.