9 Questions To Answer Before Requesting A High Shear Mixer Granulator

Today, high-shear mixer granulator machines are considered the most demandable equipment in the competitive mixing arena. The machine produces efficient and appealing output from small to large manufacturing sectors. Are you planning to contact the vendor for the machine’s quotation? Hold on! We Are Here to Help.
‘9- questions to answer before requesting a high shear mixer granulator’ blog is what your manufacturer would ask you. We have enlisted the questions with possible useful suggestions that you’re looking for.

Ⅰ.What is your production material?

Ⅱ.What is your required procedure? Blending, Emulsification, or Particle Size Reduction?What is Pneumatic Dry Granulation?

Ⅲ.What is your desired equipment size?What is PDG Mechanism?

Ⅳ.What is your production capacity? Volume per batch?

Ⅴ.What customization do you require? Modulation in speed?

VI.Do you have anticipated costs in mind?

Ⅶ.What rotor size, speed, and horsepower do you require?

Ⅷ.What rotor size, speed, and horsepower do you require?

Ⅸ.Do you have mounted assemblies in your facility? Standalone or integrated version?

Conclusion

Ⅰ.What is your production material?

A high shear mixer granulator is required for rapid drying, humidifying, homogenizing, and wet mixing of powders.

Generally, a flexible high-shear mixer can process your product if its viscosity ranges from 1-10,000 cps. You can use them to treat a larger volume of production material.

This dedicated machine performs dry mixing and wet granulating job by a specialized four-armed mixing impeller with a sequence of mixing in a cylindrical mixing drum.

For instance:

Pharmaceuticals:In the pharmaceutical industry, a high shear mixer granulator is used for the shaping process required in powder granulation before compression. This is required for optimal handling and further production processing for tablets, capsules, topical preparations, etc., In this sector, customers mostly prefer a closed system to avoid intrusion of contamination.

For Chemicals:A high shear mixer granulator is a closed system with a mixing tool that is driven from above and below. The cumulative mechanical effects ensure intermittent or continuous operation to form a dense granulate powder substance in a short time.

For the Food Sector: This machine has replaced the conventional way of mixing and granulating dry powders, spices, flour, etc. This is achieved by the rising, whirling, and tumbling motion of your product.

Paper, Pulp, and Bleaching: This is a necessary tool to excel the product material against de-agglomerate and produce ultra dispersion that is required to separate the pulp fibers in large industrial production.

For Cosmetics Material: High shear mixer granulator is inherently superior to carrying mixing and forming uniform granules required for the production materials in the cosmetic sector e.g face powders, foundations, masks, etc.,

Confectionery:The customer requires the machine to implement in ordinary batch powder mixing of confectionery items where a combination of heat, agitation, and high shear accelerates perfect mixing and granulation.

II.What is your required procedure? Blending, Emulsification, or Particle Size Reduction?

From the consumer’s point of view, you can perform various procedures by utilizing the high shear mixer. Many of these actions can be performed by using a single unit. Your manufacturer may give you multiple options by knowing the your required procedure. For instance:

Blending

You can get rid of product stratification and achieve a homogenous mix through a blending process using a high shear mixer, no matter if particle viscosities may vary per material.

Gelling and Solubilizing

A high shear mixer is equipped with a high-speed dispersed agitator and disperser. Gums or thick substances are dispersed quickly and evenly resulting in a uniform mix free from agglomerates.

Disintegration

A high shear mixer is designed to disintegrate different materials with varying sizes and viscosities in one unit.

Emulsifying and Homogenizing

An ultra-high shear mixer helps you to obtain an emulsion with the finest droplet size. They are ideally used to emulsify two- or more unlike (immiscible) products ranging from 0.5 to 5 microns.

Particle Size Reduction

Do you require particle size reduction? High shear mixer can mill the solid particles into a uniform fine mixture.

III.What is your desired equipment size?

Size estimation is highly recommended when you are going to buy the high shear mixer, your ideal machine size is impacted by

Production Capacity	Higher production capacity = Larger machine size
Space Availability	Small floor space= Smaller sized machines

Businesses that have lower production needs and daily throughput should select small-sized portable or tabletop machines. Furthermore, small machines are effortlessly shipped and installed in small spaces.

You should also consider the fact that machines having large sizes will also be in a higher price range.

IV.What is your production capacity? Volume per batch?

If you are considering buying a high-shear mixer, the first thing, you need to determine is your desired daily production output. This will help you to calculate the capacity of your ideal high-shear mixer. You must your material density and the required volume per batch. This factor is paramount because the manufacturer may exactly assess the exact solution for your production line.

You can compute production capacity by the following example:

Your daily output is in the range 300,000– 320,000 bottles of 300 mL lotion.

Your operational time is 16 hours every day (2 shifts, 8 hours per shift).

Number of bottles produced per hour= Daily output/Operational time

= 320,000 bottles/16 hours

=20,000 bottles/hr

Volume per hour= Number of bottles produced per hour*0.3L

=20,000 x 0.3L

=6,000 =100L/min

Mixing time + residence time for product is about 20 min/batch.

Volume per batch = 100 L/min x 20 min/batch = 2,000 L/batch

So you can select one high shear mixer with 2,000 L capacity so two high shear mixers having 1,000 L capacity each.

Ⅴ.What customization do you require? Modulation in speed?

Various designs and recent progress of high shear mixer granulator

Customization is a way of modifying the equipment to enhance machines specification for aiding the manufacturing line. You can customize your machine depending on how you will process your materials

Specific processes can be performed by additional accessories like

Heating Unit
Cooling station
Milling Machines
Customized touch screen panels
Vacuum or hydraulic systems
Shape and color alteration
Explosion-proof electronics

You can also increase the speed of high shear mixers by

Contouring of rotor
Change in impeller design

This increase in speed is a way to lower the dusting and agglomeration of particles. Also, speed amplification will cut down your production time.

ⅤI.Do you have anticipated costs in mind?

You need to set aside finances for the purchase of a high-shear mixer. The anticipated cost of buying this equipment depends upon two factors:

Your processing requirements
Nature of application

If you require a machine that has the ability to process large batches in less time then obviously it will cost more.

But the advantages of buying this machine outweighs price issue as high-quality mixers will

Reduce processing time
Increase production yield
Have lower energy requirements
Cut down maintenance expenses

Ⅶ.What rotor size, speed, and horsepower do you require?

If you are familiar with rotor, speed, and horsepower, then we guarantee you can buy an efficient and high-quality high-shear mixer granulator for your production.

Speed and power consumption impact greatly processing time, size of particles, and dispersal properties.

Rotor Size

Rotor size affects mixing quality and speed of high shear mixer. Doubling the size of the rotor decreases the speed of your high shear mixer by half.

Speed

Speed is expressed generally in RPM, higher the speed higher will be turbulent flow and increased mixing efficiency. High shear speed will result in higher blending and emulsification. Tip speed rotor is generally in the range of 3000-4000 ft/min.

Horsepower

It is the power unit of the motor providing energy for the rotation of high shear mixers. Two parameters determine the horsepower of the machine:

Torque (N-m) capacity
Speed (RPM)

The formula for calculating horsepower is

Horsepower = Torque x RPM / 5,252

Ⅷ.What optimum rheological features do you require?

The powder is a fundamental raw material used in many industries as an intermediate or final product. But working with powders is somewhat difficult. This is because of its optimum rheological properties which are influenced by a large parameter. Assessing rheological factors can be applied in various industrial applications.

You must know the approach that takes into account for external and internal influences to characterize powder’s behavior for specific applications, e.g pharmaceuticals, foods, nutraceuticals, etc.,

Classification by Properties

The most significant properties that every buyer must know about their product are:

Particle size distribution
Composition
Morphology
Porosity
Surface area

Classification by Behaviour

Each type of powder substance has different behavior. For example,

Flowability,
Humidity,
Fluidizability, or compressibility.

Furthermore, powder behaviors can be sub-classified into:

Internal Influences

The internal influence includes:

Particle shape
Surface texture
Density
Packing behavior

External Influences

This involved the influence of external factors that occur during the process and handling:

Ambient condition
Air pressure
Gas flow
Applied consolidation (during compression or compaction)

Ⅸ.Do you have mounted assemblies in your facility? Standalone or integrated version?

Mixing technologies have evolved over the recent years. Now a day, you see every kind of mounted assembly both standalone and integrated versions of high shear mixers existing in markets. What do you require? Your supply vendor may ask you because each version is unique in design and has its particular pros. You can select any of them depending upon your requirement.

Multi-Shaft Mixer Assemblies

These have a high shear rotor, anchor agitator, and disperse.

Advantage

This mixer assembly carries out every function like mixing, dissolution, blending, and homogenization.

In-line Rotor Mixing Assembly

This assembly comprises the tank having a top opening and homogenizer.

Advantage

This assembly is promptly installed in manufacturing for continuous batch processing.

Bottom Entry Homogenizers

These mixers are installed at the bottom of the mixing vessel and have a stirrer with a scraper.

Advantage

The materials do not stick to walls due to the scrapper.

Batch High Shear Mixer

These are fixed vertically to the middle of the mixing container and are used for dissolving products per batch.

Advantage

These mixers have reduced mixing time in comparison to in-line mixers.

Conclusion

9- questions to answer before requesting a high shear mixer granulator is highlighting the prime parameters from the manufacturer's point of view. Apart from the above-mentioned queries, there are still many consideration scenarios that need to be checked out before asking for a quotation. Need Help? For guidance and equipment support, feel free to CONTACT US.

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