Characterization of

Particulate solid
Properties
UNIT OPERATIONS OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, 7TH EDITION,
MCCABE, SMITH, HARRIOTT
CHAPTER. 28
Particle Technology (An
introduction)
 Particle technology is a term used to
refer to the science and technology
related to the handling and processing of
particles and powders.
 It is also often described as power
technology, particle science, powder
science.
Particle Technology (An
introduction)
A knowledge of particle technology may be
used in the oil industry to design the catalytic
cracking reactor which produces gasoline from
oil.
 Ignorance of particle technology may result in
lost production, poor product quality, risk to
health, dust explosion or storage silo collapse.
What is a Particle?

a minute part of matter

a very small speck of solid
matter
Unit of matter of
indeterminate dimensions and
volume
Why? Where?
 Most chemical engineers will find themselves working
with particles at some point in their professional life
 Chemical engineers meet particulate solids in carrying out
many unit operations
 Crushing

 Drying

 Filtering

 Crystallization

 Solid fluid reacting

 Dust collecting and many more
Objectives

 The objective of this course is to introduce the subject

of particle technology to students in disciplines
requiring knowledge of the processing and handling
of particles and powders.
 Characterize particles and particulate systems
 Identify and design important traditional unit
operations.
 Introduction
 In addition to Chemical Composition, the behavior of
particulate materials is often dominated by the Physical
Properties of Constituent particles.
 From manufacturing and development perspective, some of
the most important physical properties to measure are,
Particle Size Mechanical
Particle Shape Properties
Charge
Surface
Properties
Properties
Microstructure
Importance…???
Reactivity Solubility dependence
dependence
on Particle Size
on Particle Size
Particle Shape &
Size
Particle Shape
Regular shape particles can accurately be described by
giving its shape and number of dimension.

For an irregular shape particle, individual particles are

conveniently expressed in term of their Sphericity.
Sphericity is independent of the particle size.
Dp = equivalent/nominal diameter

Vp = volume of one particle

Sp = surface area of particle

Sphere

 A sphere is a perfectly round

geometrical object in three
dimensional space that is the
surface on a completely round
ball.
 For a perfectly spherical diameter, the value for Sphericity equals to 1.
 In case of Irregular shape particles, nominal value of equivalent diameter is
taken.
 Nominal Size:
 Size used for the general identification of the actual size of the particle.
 Nominal size gives us a domain within which actual size lies with little bit
tolerance.
 It will approximately be equal to actual size, but need not to be exactly the
same as particle size.
 E.g: 100 ± 0.05 m rod is available.
 Equivalent Spherical Diameter:
 Diameter of an irregular shape object is the diameter of a sphere of equivalent volume.

Bulk Properties:
An intensive property is a bulk property, meaning that it is the physical
property of the system that does not depends upon the size or the amount of
material in the system. E.g: temperature, density, hardness of the object etc.
Intensive Properties: Properties that does not depend upon the size or the
amount of material in the system, e.g: temperature, density, hardness of the
object etc.
Extensive Properties: Properties that depend upon the size or the amount
of material in the system, e.g: mass, volume etc.
Particle Size
PARTICLE SIZE
 In general, diameter is specified for equidimensional particles.
 Most of the particles are not equidimensional, therefore they can not be
specified by a single dimension “diameter”.
 Therefore the concept of equivalent sphere has been introduced.
Equivalent spheres in comparison with Particle
dimensions:

 Based upon the measurement techniques, the particles are related to equivalent sphere
diameters by,
 a. The sphere of the same volume of the particle.
 b. The sphere of the same surface area as the particle.
 c. The sphere of the same surface area per unit volume.
 d. The sphere of the same area when projected on a plane normal to the direction of
motion.
 e. The sphere of the same projected area as viewed from above when lying in a position
of maximum stability (as with a microscope).
 f. The sphere which will just pass through the same size of square aperture as the
particle (as on a screen).
 g. The sphere with the same settling velocity as the particle in a specified fluid.
Mixed Particles and SIZE ANALYSIS
 If we have a sample of uniform particles of diameter = Dp,
 The total volume of the particles will be = m/ρp, (representing
mass and density of the particles),
 Since the volume of one particle = Vp,
 Total volume ‘V’ of N particles = V = Vp.N
 The total number of particles in sample = N = m/ ρpVp
 Total surface area of the particles is given by,
Mixed particle size and size
analysis

 Both these equations are applied to mixtures having various sizes and
densities.
 The mixture is sorted into fractions, each of constant density and
approximately constant size.
 Each fraction is then weighed, or the individual particle can be counted or
measured by number of methods.
 Information from such a particle size analysis is tabulated to show the mass
or number fractions in each size increment as a function of average particle
size in the increment.
 An analysis tabulated in this way is called a differential analysis.
 The results are often presented in histogram as shown in the figure.
Description of populations of particles
 Particle population is described in terms of Particle size distributions.
 Cumulative Size Distribution.
 Frequency Size Distribution.
 Specific surface area of mixture
 If the particle density ρp and Sphericity Φs are known, the surface
area of particles in each fraction can be calculated and added to
give the specific surface, Aw (The total surface area of the unit mass
of particles):

 For deriving this equation, it has been assumed that Sphericity and density of the
mixture is constant.
 Where xi = mass fraction in a given increment,
Dpi = average diameter (taken as arithmetic average of the smallest and
largest particle diameters in increment).
Average particle size
 The average particle size for a mixture of particles is
defined in several different ways.
 Volume surface mean diameter Ds:

If number of particle Ni in each fraction is known,

instead of mass fraction xi, then:
 Arithmetic mean diameter:
NT = number of particles
in the entire sample

 Mass mean diameter:

 Volume mean diameter:

 Total volume of the sample
 Divided by number of particles

 For sample consisting of uniform particles these average diameters are, of

course, all the same. For mixture containing particle of various sizes, however,
the several average diameters may differ widely from one another.
Number of particles in mixture
 The volume of any particle is proportional to its "diameter" cubed.


a = volume shape factor
 For sphere the value of a is 0.5236 and for short cylinder it is 0.785.
Assuming that a is independent of size, then:
 Methods of particle
size measurement
UNIT OPERATIONS OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING, 7TH EDITION,
MCCABE, SMITH, HARRIOTT
CHAPTER. 28
Screen analysis
•Testing sieves are made of
woven wire screens.
•Openings are square.
•Screens are identified by
Mesh No.
•Mesh No. is the numbers of
opening per linear inch.

•Area of opening in any screen

= 2 x Area of opening in next
smaller screen.
•Mesh dimension of any screen
= 1.41 x Mesh dimension of
next smaller screen.
Sieving
Sieving
 Screens or sieve analysis is used to measure the size (and size
distribution) of particles in size range of 0.0015 and 3 inch.
 Woven wire screens, Silk, Plastic cloth, perforated or punched
plate.
 Openings are in the form of squares.
 Each screen is identified in meshes per inch.
 A stack of screens is arranged with the smallest mesh at the
bottom and the largest one at the top.
 Vibratory motion is produced to cause better separation of
particles.
 Particles retained on each screen are then removed and weighed
to draw the Cumulative and Frequency distribution curves.
 Sieving
 The results of screen analysis are tabulated to show the mass fraction of each screen
increment as a function of the mesh size range of the increment.
 The notation 14/20 means “through 14 mesh and on 20 mesh”.
 Typical screen analysis is given in next slide.
 First column: mesh size,
 second column: width of opening of screen,
 third column: mass fraction of total sample that is retained on that screen xi (where i is the
number starting from the bottom of the stack),
 fourth column: averaged particle size Dpi (since the particle on any screen are passed
immediately by the screen ahead of it, the averaged of these two screen are needed to
specify the averaged size in that increment).
 Fifth column: cumulative fraction smaller than Dpi.
Description of populations of particles
 Particle population is described in terms of Particle size distributions.
 Cumulative Size Distribution.
 Frequency Size Distribution.