What Are the Challenges for Mixing Process of a 3D Mixer?

1.What Is the 3D Mixer?

3D Mixer

3D mixer is the abbreviation of three-dimensional mixer, which is a mixing equipment widely used in industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and food. The core principle of a 3D mixer lies in its unique spatial motion mode. It can achieve multi-directional motion in three-dimensional space, allowing materials to undergo complex convection, diffusion, and shear movements within the container.

This all-round motion mode ensures that materials can be thoroughly and uniformly mixed in a short period of time, regardless of differences in material shape, density, and flowability, achieving the desired mixing effect.

2.What Are the Benefits of 3D Mixer?

Why use a 3D mixer? What are the advantages of a 3D mixer compared to a regular mixer?

Easy maintenance

The maintenance of the 3D mixer is relatively simple. It usually adopts modular design, making maintenance and replacement of components of the equipment more convenient and efficient. In addition, some equipment is equipped with lubrication and cooling systems to ensure stable performance during long-term operation.

Strong adaptability

Strong Adaptability - Sourced: Syntegon

The 3D mixer has strong adaptability, which is suitable for mixing different powders and granular materials, including but not limited to pharmaceutical, food, chemical, pesticide and other fields.

Easy to operate

Operators can adjust the degree of mixing to better meet specific production needs by controlling parameters such as time and speed of the 3D mixer.

3.What Industries Can 3D Mixer Be Used In?

The 3D mixer has many uses, and its efficient mixing effect can be applied to multiple industries.

Pharmaceutical industry

Pharmaceutical Industry - Sourced: GELITA

The ingredient mixing of drugs requires extremely high uniformity and precision. The 3D motion mixer, with its gentle mixing method, effectively avoids material wear and contamination during the mixing process, ensuring the stability and safety of drug quality.

Chemical industry

Chemical Industry - Sourced: Shutterstock

The chemical industry has a wide variety of materials with different properties, from powdered chemicals to granular raw materials, all of which require efficient mixing. The strong adaptability and efficient mixing ability of the 3D mixer make it a powerful assistant on chemical production lines.

Food industry

Food Industry - Sourced: Refresh

The 3D mixer is made of high-quality stainless steel material, with a well-designed internal structure that is easy to clean and maintain, and meets food hygiene and safety standards.

In food processing, whether it is mixing various seasonings evenly or accurately proportioning food ingredients and additives, it can easily handle it, bringing consumers food products with consistent taste and excellent quality.

4.What Challenges in Technological Design of 3D Mixer?

The principle of 3D mixer is based on precise control of 3D motion, and there are certain difficulties in the industrial design of 3D mixer.

Increasingprocess complexity

In order to improve the mixing effect, complex processes such as segmented mixing and multiple feeding may be introduced. Although this may improve the mixing quality, it will make the entire production process longer, increase the number of operational steps, increase the difficulty of production management and the probability of errors, and require higher technical skills from operators.

Difficulty in parameter matching

Difficulty in Parameter Matching - Sourced: Modern Machine Shop

The parameters such as mixing speed, time, and angle are interrelated and mutually constrained, making it difficult to find the optimal parameter combination that can adapt to all raw material characteristics and production needs.

For example, it is difficult to determine a universal rotational speed and mixing time for raw materials with different densities and viscosities, and a large number of experiments and adjustments may be required.

Connection issues with subsequent processes

The optimization of the pre mixing process may result in mismatches with subsequent main mixing, molding, and other processes. For example, if the state of the pre mixed material changes, it may cause the flowability, viscosity and other characteristics in the subsequent process to not meet the requirements, affecting the quality and production efficiency of the final product.

5.What Problems in Operation And Maintenance of 3D Mixer?

During long-term operation, it is inevitable that machines will encounter some problems.

Equipment wear and tear intensifies

In order to achieve better mixing results, the speed of the mixer may be increased or the mixing intensity may be increased, which will accelerate the wear of components such as blades and cylinders of the equipment, shorten the service life of the equipment, increase maintenance costs and downtime.

Equipment compatibility issues

Equipment Compatibility Issues - Sourced: Nimble AppGenie

When optimizing the pre mixing process, it may be necessary to make some modifications to the equipment or add new components, such as replacing the blades, adding baffles, etc. But these modifications may conflict with the original structure and performance of the equipment, leading to unstable operation and even malfunctions.

Increased difficulty in cleaning

Increased Difficulty in Cleaning - Sourced: Homes & Gardens

The optimized process may increase the adhesion of materials in the mixer or the residue of materials after mixing, which will increase the difficulty and frequency of equipment cleaning. If the cleaning is not thorough, the residual materials may affect the quality of the next batch of products.

6.What Difficulties in Quality Control of 3D Mixer?

The quality control of a 3D mixer is related to its performance and lifespan, and there are some issues in quality control.

Uniformity detection error

In the optimization process, it is necessary to accurately detect the mixing uniformity of materials to determine the optimization effect, but the uniformity detection method may have errors. For example, insufficient representativeness of sampling and insufficient accuracy of detection instruments may result in detection results that cannot truly reflect the actual mixing situation of materials, thereby affecting the judgment of optimization direction.

Risk of foreign object contamination

Foreign Object Contamination - Sourced: The National Provisioner

When optimizing the process, new auxiliary equipment or additives may be introduced, which increases the risk of foreign matter mixing in. For example, newly added additives may contain impurities, or new equipment may produce foreign objects such as metal shavings during operation, which can affect product quality.

Quality stability challenge

During the process of process optimization, the adjustment of parameters and changes in the process may lead to fluctuations in product quality, making it difficult to maintain stability. For example, before finding the optimal process parameters, there may be some batches of products with qualified mixing uniformity and some batches with unqualified, which poses difficulties for quality control.

7.What Are the Cost And Efficiency Drawbacks of Optimization of 3D Mixers?

During the optimization process of the 3D mixer, costs may increase and production efficiency may decrease.

Increasing time cost

Time Cost - Sourced: OR-AS Website

The optimization process requires a lot of experimentation and debugging work to determine the optimal process parameters and operating methods, which can consume a significant amount of time and manpower, leading to delays in production progress and affecting production efficiency for a certain period of time.

Rising production costs

Rising Production Costs - Sourced: Business Post Nigeria

Process optimization may require the investment of new equipment, additives, or increased energy consumption, leading to an increase in production costs. For example, using more advanced online detection equipment to monitor the mixing process can improve the mixing quality, but the equipment procurement and operation costs are higher.

Risk of decreased production efficiency

In the early stage of process optimization, due to the unfamiliarity of operators with new processes and equipment, or the immaturity of new processes, there may be a temporary decrease in production efficiency, such as frequent equipment failures and unsmooth production processes.

8.What Are the Factors that Affect the Performance of a 3D Mixer?

3D mixers are influenced by various factors, such as materials, time, etc., which can all affect the performance of the mixer.

Characteristics of mixed materials

Mixed Materials - Sourced: MedicalNewsToday

The basic characteristics of materials include material density, self weight, particle radius, moisture content, and agglomeration. The smaller the difference in these physical properties, the less impact they have on the mixing. In addition, some material components may adhere to the cylinder wall and bottom during the mixing process, which can reduce the mixing degree and affect the mixing effect.

Mixing time

Mixing Time - Sourced: Britannica

During the mixing process, the mixing quality rapidly increases with the increase of mixing time and reaches the optimal uniform state. If the mixing still needs to continue, the materials inside the cylinder will form clumps, and the amount of mixed materials may decrease, which will lower the mixing quality.

Therefore, after optimal mixing, the mixed materials should be promptly discharged, otherwise material separation may occur.

Mixing speed

The speed of the 3D mixer is one of the key factors affecting the uniformity of the mixture. The speed of the mixer directly determines the movement state of the material inside the compartment, as well as the force exerted on the material by the blades inside the compartment.

Excessive speed of the 3D mixer during the mixing process can cause material convection, diffusion, and shear deformation, making it impossible to achieve uniform mixing. Therefore, selecting the correct rotational speed for different materials is an important step in improving uniformity.

9.How To Optimize The Preset Process of a 3D Mixer?

Optimizing the premixing process of a 3D mixer can be approached from multiple aspects.

Accurate measurement of feeding

By using high-precision measuring equipment such as electronic scales, measuring pumps, etc., various raw materials are accurately measured to ensure that the amount of each feeding is accurate and error free, in order to ensure the stability of the composition ratio of the pre mixed product and improve the uniformity of the content.

Adjustingthe mixing angle

Adjusting the Mixing Angle - Sourced: Amazon

The 3D mixer has different motion angles in different directions. According to the characteristics of the material and the mixing requirements, the tilt angle, rolling angle, etc. of the mixer are adjusted to enable the material to be fully exchanged and mixed in different spatial positions during the mixing process, avoiding mixing dead corners.

Determiningthe appropriate rotational speed

It is necessary to determine the optimal mixing speed suitable for different raw materials and formulas. Low rotational speed, insufficient material mixing; Excessive rotational speed may result in excessive centrifugal force on the material, causing it to adhere to the mixer wall or generate excessive shear, affecting the mixing effect. Generally speaking, a lower rotational speed can be used to initially mix the materials, and then the rotational speed can be gradually increased to the optimal value to achieve a good mixing effect.

Determiningthe optimal mixing time

Determining the Optimal Mixing Time - Sourced: Mayo Clinic System

By conducting experiments on the relationship between mixing time and mixing uniformity, drawing a curve, and finding the time point at which the mixing uniformity meets the requirements and no longer significantly improves, the optimal mixing time is determined.

In actual production, strictly follow the optimal mixing time to avoid problems such as uneven mixing caused by too short mixing time, or energy waste and excessive material wear caused by too long mixing time.

10.What Can AIPAK 3D Mixer Bring for You?

AIPAK has many years of experience in producing 3D mixers and serves numerous customers. Let’s take a look at the advantages of AIPAK 3D mixers together.

AIPAK 3D Mixer

Efficient mixing

This 3D mixer can evenly mix powdered or granular materials, achieving good results in the mixture, making it an ideal choice for mixing dry powder materials. The mixing bucket operates in multiple directions, utilizing the principles of three degree swing, translational rotation, and rock motion to generate alternating pulse motion, resulting in a changing energy gradient that continuously pushes the mixed materials.

Mixing evenly

During the mixing process, the flow and diffusion are accelerated, avoiding the phenomenon of material density segregation and accumulation caused by centrifugal force in general mixers.

Made of high-quality materials

Made of High-quality Materials - Sourced: eBay

The whole machine is made of 304 stainless steel material, which complies with GMP standards. In addition to its own stainless steel mixing tank, this 3D mixer can also replace the material of the mixing tank.

Conclusion

With the continuous deepening and development of the biopharmaceutical field, the functionality of hybrid systems also needs to be continuously improved according to customer needs, and the process of process automation needs to be further accelerated. The 3D mixer can achieve efficient and uniform mixing, and can be applied to multiple fields. If you have any needs, please feel free to contact AIPAK at any time.