Particle size is one of the parameters which has determined the stability, resistance or even chemical activity of manufactured product. This parameter could determine a progress of pharmaceutical technology by influencing, for instance, on flowability and as a consequence on the constitiution of drug product. Nowadays, the most common technique used for the determination of particle-size distribution is laser light diffraction. However, this method has very important limit - is unable to recognize a particle shape. The determination of particle shape provides information important not only from technological point of view but also for dissolution and bioavailability processes. Automatic optical microscopy allows to generate information about each, individual particle of tested sample and gives the opportunity for creation of distribution graph of any morphological parameter. The application of automatic optical microscopy for the optimalization of particle-size distribution determination using laser light diffraction has been presented.

Keywords: automatic optical microscopy, particle characterization, particle-size distribution, laser light diffraction.