Particle size determination scattering techniques

Light Scattering Technique. Properties of the light scattered by a large number of droplets can be used to determine droplet size distribution. Dobbins et al. 694 first derived the theoretical formulation of scattering properties of particles of arbitrary sizes and refractive indices in polydispersions of finite optical depth. Based on... 

Photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS) has been used extensively for the sizing of submicrometer particles and is now the accepted technique in most sizing determinations. PCS is based on the Brownian motion that colloidal particles undergo, where they are in constant, random motion due to the bombardment of solvent (or gas) molecules surrounding them. The time dependence of the fluctuations in intensity of scattered light from particles undergoing Brownian motion is a function of the size of the particles. Smaller particles move more rapidly than larger ones and the amount of movement is defined by the diffusion coefficient or translational diffusion coefficient, which can be related to size by the Stokes-Einstein equation, as described by... 

Fig. 4 PIC dye nanoparticles prepared by the ion-association method. (1) Particle size distributions (determined by the dynamic light scattering technique) and the corresponding electron micrographs of the dye nanoparticles. The average diameter can be controlled by tuning the molar ratio of TPB- to PIC+ (=[TPB-]/[PIC+]. With an increase in the molar ratio, the average diameter decreased. (2) Absorption spectra of PIC nanoparticles in aqueous solution with different sizes (125 and 64 nm in diameter), exhibiting size-dependent peak shift of the 0-0 band. The spectrum of the aqueous PIC-Br monomer solution is also shown...

In addition to the positional and thermal parameters of the atoms, least-squares procedures are used to determine the scale of the data, and parameters such as mosaic spread or particle size, which influence the intensities through multiple-beam effects (Becker and Coppens 1974a, b, 1975). It is not an exaggeration to say that modern crystallography is, to a large extent, made possible by the use of least-squares methods. Similarly, least-squares techniques play a central role in the charge density analysis with the scattering formalisms described in the previous chapter. 

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