Morphological Characterization of Flowing Particles by Image Analysis Techniques

Abstract

The guidelines which are at the base of the definition of a system capable of operating on a slurry containing the solid particulate for its characterization are described. All the considerations have been developed with particular reference to the case of a granular heterogeneous material in particular, the different research problems, making a comparison with the case of static images, acquired under laboratory conditions, are pointed out. Attention was focused on problems of acquisition and digital image processing to obtain information which is clean from noise and errors. The considerations and procedures analysed show general validity and can be applied to a large number of problems linked to the “on‐line” morphological characterization of particulate solids materials. Some results for morphological characteristics of lead sulphide (PbS) samples are reported.

Particle Characterisation in Bulk Powders

“…For most operations, the two most important parameters in process monitoring and control are particle size and morphology. With recent advances in sensor technology, it is now possible to implement both size measurement and shape morphology characterisation simultaneously either using two separate units, one for size and the other for shape (Bonifazi et al 1995;, or from a single unit (Castellini et al 1993;Galai, Migdal Haemek, Israel;Lasentec, Redmond, WA). With laser-light illumination, both a particle-size distribution and a morphological particle shape characteristic can be obtained from a flowing stream of particles, using either a time-of-flight (TOF) or a time-of-transition (TOT) technique.…”

Particle Identification by Image Processing

“…batch or online analysis); plainly, if operation techniques vary a great deal, batch processing is much simpler (Bonifazi et al, 1993a).…”