Binary emulsion investigation by optical tomographic microscopy for FASES experiments

The ESA project FASES aims at giving new insights into the understanding of emulsion aging. The studied emulsions consist in dilute and transparent water-in-paraffin-oil emulsions that will be studied using optical tomographic microscopy (OTM). Emulsion reconstruction in 3D is performed using a dedicated image analysis software which allows the determination of the droplet size distribution even for highly polydisperse emulsions. The microscope characteristics are similar to those planned to be used in the international space station for emulsion experiments under favourable microgravity conditions. It consists in a microscope, a motorized stage, a standard CCD camera and a digitized frame grabber. Main advantage of OTM here is to allow fast and non-intrusive investigation of the bulk emulsion properties and hence to prevent measurement perturbations and wall effects.