Why Use a Vacuum Mixer?
Vacuum mixers are used to mix chemicals under vacuum, which allows air bubbles to be removed from the mixture. They are commonly used in manufacturing cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.
Using a vacuum mixer will allow you to produce casts and impressions that are smooth, dense and more detailed. They are also useful for mixing phosphate investments, alginates and gypsum materials.
Homogenization
The cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries use vacuum homogenizers to produce a wide variety of products. They remove air bubbles more quickly than atmospheric mixing, which improves product quality. They also make it easier to drain, clean and refill a mixer tank, which is especially important in applications that require repeated product changes.
Homogenization is the process of disrupting and dispersing ingredients to make a uniform mixture. It can be achieved with a combination of forces, including shear, high pressure and ultrasonics. BEE International offers both high- and low-pressure homogenizers that can use these different forces to break up globules and reduce particle size.
Vacuum mixers can also be vacuum mixer used for more complex processes, such as lysing cells or killing pathogens. They can also be used to micronize or nanosize particles, and create stable emulsions, liposomes and dispersions.
In addition, vacuum homogenizers are widely used in milk processing to standardize fat globules and improve the texture, appearance and taste of the finished product. They can also be used to extract and activate enzymes, which are proteins that speed up biological processes. The dynamic pressure of homogenizing can also modify the structure of biomolecules, a process known as homogenizer-assisted extraction. This can be beneficial for the food industry because it improves the stability and extractability of valuable compounds like flavonoids, polyphenols, lycopenes, etc.
Fermentation and Synthesis
A vacuum mixer allows you to mix compounds in vacuum conditions that limit excess air and prevent bubble formation. These conditions also help the material bind more tightly, which is important for many applications. This type of mixer is used for emulsifying polyesters and synthetic fibers, saponification products, sauces, detergents, paints, and coating liquids. It’s also used in the printing and dyeing auxiliaries, paper, pesticide and fertilizers, plastic and rubber, and power electronics industries.
Another common application is a fermentation process that takes raw ingredients and converts them into a new substance or compound. The process is often carried out at a lower temperature than traditional mixing methods, which preserves the original ingredients’ properties. This is an important aspect of food processing and can save time, money and energy. Fermentation techniques helped produce the life-saving antibiotic penicillin during World War II, for example.
Vacuum mixers are useful in the medical industry as well, especially when preparing bone cements for dental procedures. The machine creates a highly homogenized mixture that’s free of air bubbles and will perform better than hand-mixed materials that are more prone to failure. The vacuum mixer also prevents contamination and helps ensure that the cement has a smooth texture, which is vital for proper function.
Sublimation
Using a vacuum mixer to remove air and oxygen during mixing helps to ensure a high purity for certain chemicals. It also prevents decomposition of air-sensitive substances, thwarts unwanted chemical reactions and microbial growth, and improves product stability. Vacuum environments can also minimize the formation of air bubbles that could affect performance in molded composites, personal care products, and even foods and beverages.
The vertical sublimation purification apparatus of the present invention is equipped with a boat-shaped material carrier, a sealing cap at the air extraction mixer manufacturer end, and two end pipes 33 and 34. It also has heat shield devices 9 formed of quartz wool and located in the b, c ends and at one end of the sublimation channel body. After the material carrier is placed inside the vessel and the heating evaporation device is started, air is extracted by connecting the end pipe at the air extraction end with the vacuum system until the pressure of the entire chamber reaches 9.2×10-6 mbar. Then the temperature of the center in the heating evaporation device is raised to realize the sublimation.
When the temperature of the materials reaches a predetermined point and the vapor pressure is equal to the system pressure, the product scratching device is turned on at regular time intervals to scratch off the products from the condensation region 91 and push them into the product storage tank 92 via twisting and pushing operations. The process can be repeated to obtain high purity products.
Impregnation
Vacuum mixing can remove macroscopic bubbles, adsorbed air, solvents or moisture from materials in-situ, allowing them to perform as designed. A vacuum SpeedMixer can also help debubbling processes, for example in the manufacturing of 3D printed parts, where bubbles and voids must be removed to ensure the final product will function as intended.
In food processing, vacuum impregnation is often used to modify functional properties of plant tissue. For example, it is known to enhance the texture of fruit and vegetable products by limiting thawing drip and improving consistency through osmotic dehydration. A combination of vacuum impregnation and osmotic dehydration, called pulsed vacuum osmotic dehydration (PVOD), is effective in reducing water activity in tissue, shortening the duration of the process, and decreasing structural changes compared to soaking or blanching.
Similarly, vacuum impregnation is useful in the production of silicones, where it is used to improve mechanical properties and chemical stability by removing trapped gasses and bubbles that cause thermal degradation during heat accelerated cure. This allows curing to occur at lower temperatures and can significantly reduce oxidation risk in GMP-compliant manufacture.
When implementing these processes, it is important to use a suitable vessel and set the correct pressure level for each application. It is also advisable to include a sight glass in the mixer to monitor changes in volume, and to include a break valve in the vessel design that can be activated when the desired vacuum level has been reached. This will allow the vacuum to be broken, and a mixture to be pumped back into the vessel at normal atmospheric pressure.