Particles occur in almost all processes in chemical and life sciences. The particle size and shape influence the process performance and product quality, and in turn they are influenced by the flow behavior of the particles during production. Monitoring and controlling such characteristics in multiphase systems to obtain sufficient qualities will greatly facilitate the achievement of reproducible and defined distributions. So far, obtaining this information inline has been challenging, because existing instruments lack measurement precision, being unable to process overlapping signals from different particle phases in highly concentrated multiphase systems. However, recent advances in photo-optics made it possible to monitor such features (particle size distribution (PSD), aspect ratio and particle concentration) with advanced image analysis (IA) in real-time. New analysis workflows as well as single feature extractions from the images using multiple image analysis algorithms allowed the precise real-time measurements of size, shape and concentration of particle collectives even separated from each other in three phase systems. The performances, advantages and drawbacks with other non-photo-optical methods for assessing the particle size distribution are compared and discussed.
