The significance of particle technology cannot be understated in industrial processes that involve such products as toner, paint, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, food, cement, fine chemicals, detergents, catalysis, ceramics, powder metallurgy, abrasives, fertilizer and gasification — to name a few. For processes dealing with particulate as raw materials, intermediates, or the final product, the ability to measure, monitor, and characterize fundamental particle properties, such as size, size distribution, shape, density, and surface texture, is essential.
This article discusses the importance of particle size and shape to material handling in a wide range of unit operations. Because particle size depends on how “size” is defined and measured, the article provides various definitions of particle size, explains how shape and size are related, and compares extreme shapes that have a common size parameter (same volume or projected area) to show how definitions of size can be dramatically different. It gives an overview of particle sizing technologies, explaining how they work and comparing their advantages and limitations. It also discusses the descriptive terms used to characterize particle shape and the shape factors used to quantify shape.