USING IMAGE ANALYSIS OBTAINED BY SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (SEM) FOR DETERMINATION OF SPHERICITY IN PVC PARTICLES.

The images obtained by the technique of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) can be used to determine: shape and size of the particles by a computerized analysis (image analysis). In this investigation was determined by image analysis the sphericity of particles in different polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resins using SEM. Were used 4 different types of PVC resins which were examined by SEM at different magnifications (i.e., 100 and 250X). Subsequently, was used image analysis for each micrographs. The morphology of PVC particles had was similar to some popcorn; with to respect the sphericity of the particles most values were <0.72 for the different types of PVC analyzed, indicating that they are not spherical. We conclude that PVC particles are differ from a perfect sphere because the image analysis showed values less than 1, this value being indicative of a perfect sphere.