A comparative study of ultrasound and laser light diffraction techniques for particle size determination in dairy beverages

The particle size distribution (PSD) of milkfat droplets of raw and homogenized milk was determined by a diagnostic ultrasound technique that was initially calibrated with colloidal silica. The quality of the fit between ultrasound theory and experiment is discussed and provides a basis for comparison with the reference laser light scattering technique. The predicted ultrasonic attenuation was determined from the ECAH (Epstein P S and Carhart R R 1953 J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 25 553–65, Allegra J R and Hawley S A 1972 J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 51 1545–64) model using thermophysical data for milkfat and milk serum. New thermophysical properties of milkfat were established. The experimental data were obtained with the Ultrasizer spectrometer. Both techniques were affected by the milk proteins and could provide only qualitative milkfat PSD for the raw and the homogenized milk samples. Therefore, they showed their limitations to characterize multiple emulsions. However, preliminary results are shown for the ultrasound technique that account for the impact of the protein on the measured data and hence obtain quantitative results for the milkfat size distributions.