Development of a 3D Printed Flow Cell for Application as an In-line Optical Particle Analysis Tool

The demand for a cost-effective in-line particle measurement device is high, and the image analysis of particles in flow represents a promising concept to meet these expectations. In this work, we present an in-house developed image analysis flow cell to track particle size distributions in a process stream, including the necessary code and printing files for open-source use. For benchmarking of the flow cell, premade seeded solutions were prepared and analyzed by comparing the results to already applied and commercially available particle measurement devices. Furthermore, the results of six mixed-suspension, mixed-product-removal crystallization experiments were evaluated with the new measurement system.