Due to its non-invasive and non-destructive nature, Acoustic Emission (AE) has been successfully used in a wide variety of solids elaboration process. But few papers reported that solution crystallization process give rise to acoustic emission signals that could be related to the basic crystallization phenomena. This study is intended to evaluate the potential for using acoustic emission to monitor the physicochemical crystallization process. The potential relationship between the generation of acoustic signals and the physicochemical crystallization process of salicylic acid (SA) is analyzed by intensity of AE signal and pH value of the solution. Due to its great impact on end-product quality, SA crystal particles are investigated under the influence of injection rates. The results demonstrate that the mode of the particle size distribution is inversely related to the injection rates. In addition, the intensity of AE is obviously influenced by the injection rates. Moreover, the changing tendencies of AE are related to the basic crystallization phenomena, and the intensity of AE can be an important technical parameter to characterize the physicochemical crystallization process. The valuable AE information could increase process understanding and provide a basis for innovative online monitoring and control application. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.