title: Commercial spectrophotometer for particle sizing.
abstract: Particle-size distribution and the concentration of polystyrene particles suspended in water were accurately recovered from the inversion of spectral extinction data measured with a commercial spectrophotometer. The instrument was modified by placing a spatial filter in the collection optics to prevent low-angle scattered light from affecting the measurement of transmitted power. The data were inverted by use of a nonlinear iterative algorithm. When the extinction coefficient is measured in the lambda range of 0.3-1.1 microm, the particle distributions can be retrieved over a diameter range of 0.6-2.8 microm for a wide interval of sample concentrations. The average diameters are recovered with a precision of better than +/-1% and with accuracies consistent with the uncertainties by which the nominal diameters are known. The relative standard deviations of distributions corresponding to monodisperse samples are +/-5-10%, whereas the accuracy on the measured concentrations is approximately 5%.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mathematical, Physical and Chemical Sciences, University of Milan at Como, via Lucini, 3-22100 Como, Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ferri
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bassini
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Paganini