Why Use a Vacuum Mixer?
Mixing under vacuum helps to reduce oxidation and keeps your materials looking fresh and performing well. It also allows drying processes to proceed faster and at lower temperatures.
The TOB-SVM-1L system Vacuum mixer is suitable for preparing LiCoO3, LiFePO4, Phosphors and ceramic slurry without gas bubble and with extreme uniformity. It can also be used to mix a variety of other materials.
Medical and Food Applications
A vacuum mixer can be used for mixing a wide range of products in medical, food and chemical industries. Because they’re primarily used in production for items that humans come vacuum mixer into direct contact with, these machines must adhere to rigorous standards set by health codes.
Vacuum-sealed mixing containers are also available, which helps protect against bacteria and other contamination. Typically, vacuum-sealed mixers are cleaned using sterilization methods before the next batch of production starts. These mixers can also be fitted with a heating system to help maintain proper temperature control for the product being made.
In the food industry, a vacuum mixer can be useful for producing a variety of items, such as protein powder blends. The nutrient compositions for these products must be free of air bubbles to ensure that they are mixed properly and that the finished product performs as expected. Vacuum mixing helps to prevent air bubbles and thoroughly homogenizes the ingredients for optimal results.
In addition to preventing the incorporation of air into finished products, vacuum mixing can also be useful for reducing processing times and temperatures. Certain gels, pastes and other materials are blended under vacuum to prevent oxidation and other problems that can occur in normal industrial production processes. A vacuum mixer can also help to make the drying process much quicker and more efficient by allowing it to be performed at lower atmospheric pressures.
Agglomeration
Many powdered or fine-grained substances are hardly suitable for use as intermediates or end products because they create dust, stick to other materials or segregate. Agglomeration offers an alternative: the substance is brought together to build agglomerates. These show – on the contrary to the disperse original substances – nearly the same specific surfaces. This leads to much improved product properties such as better flowability, simpler dosability and optimised transportability.
The process of agglomeration is also often used in the pharmaceutical industry: solid active pharmaceutical ingredients must be bound into user-friendly dosage forms such as chewable tablets, effervescent tablets, oral tablets or capsules. In the process, the active ingredients are agglomerated and bound to filler material with liquid binders. This agglomeration is usually carried out in rotary drum batch mixers such as the Conti-TDS.
However, agglomeration isn’t always a positive thing – undesirable agglomeration in mixing operations can lead to a wide range of problems. One way of breaking up unwanted agglomerates is to expose them to strong shear forces, which destroys their bonding structures.
A vacuum in the mixing process can massively accelerate the drying of filler agglomerates, especially if they are made of heat-sensitive active ingredients. This makes the use of a vacuum mixer particularly useful for the matrix blending of solid surface materials. This results in void-free cast solid surface products that can be used to create the popular designs found in modern kitchen and bathroom design.
Impregnation
The vacuum impregnation process using a vacuum mixer allows for the application of different chemicals into the inner cavities of the material. It can also be used mixer manufacturer to reduce the amount of water absorbed by the material in order to increase its dry matter content and the strength of its cell walls.
The impregnation of food products with different chemical compounds can significantly modify the physico-chemical properties and sensory attributes of foods. The solution containing different compounds penetrates into the intracellular spaces and capillaries of the tissue and can introduce various advantages, including a higher nutritive value (e.g. enrichment with polyphenols, probiotics and micronutrients), extension of shelf life and modification of flavor properties.
Vacuum impregnation can be used to seal porosity in metals, ceramics and plastics. It is especially effective in sealing voids in powdered metal parts, which can save money on scraps, lower warranty costs and improve profitability. This type of impregnation can also help to prevent corrosion and wear in machined metal parts.
A vacuum pump in a vacuum mixer is usually designed to continuously pull air out of the vessel while mixing to create a vacuum environment. It is important to include a break valve in the vessel design so that the pump can be turned off once the desired vacuum is achieved. This will avoid drawing out volatile constituents into the vacuum system and upsetting the formulation.
Degassing
Using a vacuum mixer can be an effective way to reduce the incorporation of air into your materials. This is important for almost all liquids, jells and powders but can be especially critical when it comes to plastic resins and epoxies.
A vacuum mixer uses a central blade assembly to churn the material while the mixer is under reduced atmospheric pressure. This can be set to a precise level for your application so you can create the right conditions for degassing your material. This eliminates the secondary reactions with atmospheric gases that can occur when mixing in open air and improves the consistency of the mixture, ensuring better performance.
If you are working with a liquid resin that requires the addition of fillers, it is important to vacuum degass prior to adding the powders. This will help prevent small “volcanoes” of powder being pulled into the vacuum pump and can greatly shorten mixing times and improve powder dispersing.
Similarly, vacuum impregnation can be used to quickly and efficiently add liquid active ingredients into filler agglomerates. This can improve the rheology of the resulting thixotrope and is essential for some types of applications like battery electrode pastes. In this case, it is important to use a small sized pump to ensure that the vacuum levels are kept low enough to not cause thermal degradation of the active ingredients in the thixotrope.