A simple and rapid method for the determination of particle size in emulsions from ultrasound data

Oil droplet size in emulsions can be determined from ultrasound velocity and attenuation spectra. We show that explicit solutions of the acoustic scattering matrix may be used to rapidly calculate a mean particle size for a limited but useful range of particle sizes. Our technique is well suited to in-line measurement. Both modelling and experiment indicate that the main scattering mechanism is thermal scattering. Calculations using the explicit solutions have been compared with experimental results from sunflower oil-in-water emulsions.