Development of laboratory and process sensors to monitor particle size distribution of industrial slurries

In this paper we present a novel measurement technique for monitoring particle size distributions of industrial colloidal slurries based on ultrasonic spectroscopy and mathematical deconvolution. An on-line sensor prototype has been developed and tested extensively in laboratory and production settings using mineral pigment slurries. Evaluation to date shows that the sensor is capable of providing particle size distributions, without any assumptions regarding their functional form, over diameters ranging from 0.1 to 100 micrometers in slurries with particle concentrations of 10 to 50 volume percents. The newly developed on-line sensor allows one to obtain particle size distributions of commonly encountered inorganic pigment slurries under industrial processing conditions without dilution