Process for characterizing suspensions of small particles

Claim 1

A Process to characterize a suspension of particles comprising the steps of: A. Introducing said suspension into a region surrounded by a plurality of detectors, each at a different angular location; B. Passing a narrow beam of electromagnetic radiation through said suspension; C. Detecting the radiation scattered by said suspension at said different angular locations; D. Converting each said detected scattered radiation into a proportional numerical value; E. Storing said numerical values in a memory means corresponding to each discrete detector means; F. Deriving measured optical observable values by combining sufficient selected sets of stored numerical values to yield a set of optical observables characteristic of the suspension of interest; G. Defining an optical observable map for a fixed range of optical observable values in terms of a set of physical observables, each physical parameter restricted to a domain encompassing those characteristic of the suspension of interest, and said map consisting of closed regions within which ranges the circumscribing physical parameters would result in an optical observable within the defining fixed range; H. Retrieving from memory means previously stored maps of optical observables, one map for each measured optical observable value and whose range of optical observable values bracket the corresponding computed values; I. Superimposing a sufficient number of said retrieved maps of optical observables to yield a unique and finite region of overlap; J. Identifying the range of each suspension's physical parameters corresponding to the common overlap region of said retrieved maps; and, K. Classifying and identifying the unknown suspension by the value of the physical parameters defined by the optical observable map overlap region.