Dynamic Image Analysis of suspended liquid particles.
In various industries, it is important to measure the size of liquid particles in a suspension. These could be as simple as oil droplets suspended in water or water droplets suspended in oil. There are other instances in pharmaceutical applications where liquid dosages may be encapsulated inside a harder outer shell. In many of these cases, the end user may have a need to determine the size of these globules, the shape, and possibly the concentration. However, the challenge is using an automated technique that can differentiate between a water droplet and an oil droplet as well as to differentiate these particles of interest from other debris as to not impact the concentration measurements. The most common particle measurement techniques can only differentiate particles based on size. In addition, most of these common techniques will assume all particles are spherical in shape, which for this globule application is an accurate assumption unless there are non-spherical particles, such as debris, that could incorrectly be measured as part of the main population of particles. In addition, some of the more common techniques require supplementary information about the particles as well as the fluid they are suspended in.
