•Application of ultrasound techniques to dispersed liquid-liquid flows.•Ultrasound methods are used to obtain dispersed phase volume fraction and drop size distribution.•PLIF technique is used to validate results from the ultrasound measurements.•There was good agreement between the ultrasound and PLIF techniques. This paper delineates the development and application of non-intrusive diagnostic ultrasound (US) techniques for the measurement of the drop size distribution (DSD) and the drop volume fraction in dispersed liquid-liquid flows. The techniques used here are based on the measurement of the speed and the attenuation coefficient of the propagated ultrasound wave. To validate the results of the ultrasound measurements, a planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique was used to image the dispersed phase at the same time and location as the ultrasound transducers. For the tests, a silicon oil and a glycerol/water mixture, with the same refractive index as the oil, were used. The experiments were carried out in a stirred vessel with the impeller placed either just below the oil/aqueous mixture interface or at 25 mm below the interface and rotated at speeds of 300–400 rpm. The dispersed oil volume fractions measured by both the US and PLIF techniques were in excellent agreement and varied between 0.53% to 4.2%. Good agreement between the two techniques was also found for the drop size distributions. For the conditions investigated, the drop size ranged from 0.25 mm to 2 mm. The results indicated that the developed ultrasound technique is a powerful tool for characterising dispersed phases in liquid-liquid flows. Display omitted