Particle size and shape analysis using microscope

TITLE
Particle size and shape analysis using microscope

OBJECTIVES
To determine the size and shape of different types of particles.



PROCEDURES
 1. Using a microscope , 5 different types of sands and powders (MCC, lactose) with particular emphasis on the size and shape of the particles. 

2. The particles observed microscopically is sketched and the general shape for the particular material is determined. The magnification that used are noted in sketching the particles.

RESULTS

QUESTIONS

1. The various statistical method that can be used to measure the diameter of a particle are sieve method which is extremely old technique. The advantage of this method is cheap and readily usable for large particles. But its disadvantage is this method not possible to measure spray and emulsion. The equivalent diameter of this method is equivalent diameter. Second method is microscope method which is the excellent method as it directly look at the particles in question. But this method is not suitable for quality control slow preparation. Next is counter counter method. It is electrical stream sensing zone method which developed by H Coulter to measure any particulate material that can be suspended in an electrolyte and its equivalent diameter is volume diameter. The other method which can be used is laser light scattering method which using a laser diffraction and dynamic light scattering method which involved photon correlation spectroscopy.

2. The best statistical method is a microscopic method as involve the direct with particle in contact with question.

DISCUSSION

   A sieve analysis is a practice or procedure used to assess the particle size distribution of a granular material. Dimension of particulates are important in achieving optimum production of efficacious medicine. Solid particles are often considered to approximate to a sphere and can be characterized by determination of its diameter. Fine particles have irregular and different number of faces and thus, it would be difficult or impractical to determine more than a single dimension. There are various methods in which particle size analysis can be carried out. Among those are, sieve method, microscopic method, coulter counter, laser light scattering method and dynamic light scattering method. The method used in this experiment is the microscopic method.

     The errors that usually occur in a microscopy method are, firstly, the observation varies from person to person due to different types of vision. Secondly, there might be chances of using a wrong magnification during the process of obtaining the results. This is because there are three different magnifications for a light microscope and it totally depends on one’s choice of magnification. Thirdly, the amount of sample placed on the slide can also affect the result of the experiment because if too much of a sample is used, the observation would not be clear and one would be unable to obtain a clear image until an appropriate amount of sample is used.

    There are a few steps that should be taken to overcome the errors mentioned above. For example, only one person should observe the image under the microscope and draw the image obtained to prevent variation in observations of one sample.  Next, to overcome the probability of using a wrong magnification, one should always start observing a sample under a magnification of 10, followed by 40, and then 100. Other than that, one should be aware that too much amount of a sample cannot be placed on the slide because as mentioned above, this might affect the results obtained. Thus, a fair amount of sample should be placed on the slide for each observation.

CONCLUSION

 Microscope method is one of the methods that can be used for particle size analysis, but, just like any other method, there will always be advantages and disadvantages for this method as well. This method can be said to be an excellent technique because it involves direct vision at the particles in question. The advantages include, it is relatively cheap and the disadvantages are, it is not suitable for quality control and the operator variability on the same sample is present.