Wiktionary
n. An extremely small particle.
Wikipedia
Microparticles are particles between 0.1 and 100 μm in size. Commercially available microparticles are available in a wide variety of materials, including ceramics, glass, polymers, and metals. Microparticles encountered in daily life include pollen, sand, dust, flour, and powdered sugar.
Microparticles have a much larger surface-to-volume ratio than at the macroscale, and thus their behavior can be quite different. For example, metal microparticles can be explosive in air.
Microspheres are spherical microparticles, and are used where consistent and predictable particle surface area is important.
In biological systems, microparticles are small membrane bound vesicles circulating in the blood derived from cells that are in contact with the bloodstream such as platelets and endothelial cells (see endothelial microparticle). Because they retain the signature membrane protein composition of the parent cell, microparticles carry useful information and can be detected and characterized by flow cytometry.
Usage examples of "microparticle".
The dousing fluid was highly volatile, evaporating at room temperature, drawing off microparticles on my body and clothes.
As they went through their chemical routines, the cyanobacteria became very slightly tacky, and that tackiness trapped microparticles of dust and sand, which became bound together to form slightly weird but solid structures—the stromatolites that were featured in the shallows of the poster on Victoria Bennett’s office wall.