Noninvasive particle sizing using camera-based diffuse reflectance spectroscopy.

ABSTRACT

Diffuse reflectance measurements are useful for noninvasive inspection of optical properties such as reduced scattering and absorption coefficients. Spectroscopic analysis of these optical properties can be used for particle sizing. Systems based on optical fiber probes are commonly employed, but their low spatial resolution limits their validity ranges for the coefficients. To cover a wider range of coefficients, we use camera-based spectroscopic oblique incidence reflectometry. We develop a noninvasive technique for acquisition of apparent particle size distributions based on this approach. Our technique is validated using stable oil-in-water emulsions with a wide range of known particle size distributions. We also measure the apparent particle size distributions of complex dairy products. These results show that our tool, in contrast to those based on fiber probes, can deal with a range of optical properties wide enough to track apparent particle size distributions in a typical industrial process.