A stereologically posed mass balance for calculating the distributed efficiency of particle separation systems

Size and composition specific - i.e., distributed - efficiency of particle separation systems is calculated by exploiting measurements of particle com position in low dimension - i.e., areal grade. A stereologically based fram ework for the mass balance around the separator was set out and an original regularization criterium was used for its solution. It allows retrieving t he distribution of volumetric grade of the streams entering and exiting the separator from the respective areal grade distributions, and makes possibl e the calculation of the distributed efficiency. Synthetic data are used to demonstrate the method proposed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.