All photos: Charles Ross & Son Co.

Feature Report

The Unexpected
Rewards of
Testing a Mixer
For custom mixers and blenders,
verification is only one benefit. Testing can
open the door to further improvement
Ken Langhorn
Charles Ross & Son Co.

mong all the engineers who will

be involved in the purchase of
a mixer or blender next year,
roughly half will welcome a
change in their production method.
The other half will be determined to
prevent it.
Searching for the right equipment
to make a new product or boost current production, about 50% of users
will conduct open-eyed tests in the
laboratory of a mixing equipment
manufacturer.1 They will test a variety of mixers and ancillary equipment.
While manipulating parameters such
as shear, viscosity and flow rates, they
will experiment with various types
and combinations of agitators. They
will explore the effects of applying vacuum or altering batch temperature at
certain stages of the mix cycle.
Another 25% of users will conduct
tests, but their mission will be due diligence, not exploration. Their goal will
be to control risk by collecting data
and confirming an equipment selection prior to committing to a purchase
or rental. In other words, they want to
avoid making an expensive mistake.
The remaining 25% will not test at
all. Relying on long experience with
familiar equipment and a well-under1. The mixers and blenders we consider in this
discussion belong to the broad category of custom mixers and blenders not standard, off-theshelf turbine and propeller mixers that are regularly purchased without any need for testing.

30

Figure 1. A two-wing anchor agitator is a

cost-efficient answer to limited flow within a
mix vessel. For batches up to approximately
200,000 cP, the anchor can generate significant flow, accelerate the dispersion and hasten progress toward batch uniformity

stood application, they will replace

worn-out equipment (or perhaps scale
up) with the same equipment as before, intending only to replicate their
existing process.

Who tests, and who should

The decision to test often reflects the

personal attitude of a key manager or
the collective values of a management
team. Some welcome the challenge
and potential rewards associated with
change, while others prefer the security of continuing to operate the way
weve always done it.
Corporate culture and the companys competitive situation can also
influence the desire to test. Some
companies promote an aggressive,
unrelenting search for every possible
competitive advantage. Others especially those businesses that havent
yet been pressured by global competition are more complacent.
In fact, every manufacturing company must balance the opposing goals
of innovation versus consistency, creativity versus predictability, change
versus no-change. In most companies,
change is welcome during product development but unwelcome afterward.
After all, we all know that innovation
is the engine of product development.
It requires an open-minded approach
to equipment selection, and this often
includes equipment testing.
But on the plant floor, consistency is
paramount. The traditional approach
to production is to apply highly consis-

Chemical Engineering www.che.com July 2012

tent techniques to manufacture a consistent product, while cutting costs and

scaling production to meet demand.
This usually includes standardizing
the equipment used on the plant floor.
As demand grows, scaleup generally
means adding larger models of equipment already in use. When a piece of
equipment wears out, it is replaced
with a newer version of the same unit,
based on the expectation that it will
perform exactly as its predecessor did.
This reverence for consistency and
stability in production has been the
norm for many years. But intensifying
competition in our global economy may
call for a change of heart, especially
where mixing equipment is concerned.
The trouble with disciplined consistency in production is that mixing
technology is constantly evolving. In
some equipment categories, such as
high-shear rotor/stator mixing, highspeed powder injection and high-viscosity planetary mixing, the change
during just the last few years has
been profound.
As mixing technology has advanced,
the capabilities of even the oldest and
most familiar types of mixers have expanded along with our understanding of how they can be used and what
they can accomplish. Applications
that were once considered appropriate for only one type of mixer can
now be accomplished with a variety
of equipment strategies, each offering
a unique combination of advantages
and disadvantages.

Figure 2. This double planetary/disperser hybrid mixer is

equipped with a pair of high
speed dispersers on each of
two shafts, in addition to two
sets of helical planetary blades.
The addition of disperser blades to
the traditional double planetary mixer
enables it to handle applications that
include both high-viscosity and lowviscosity stages

Recognizing this, many forwardthinking production engineers are

now testing periodically, and not just
when a plant expansion or the addition of a new production line provides
an obvious opportunity to upgrade.
They test to stay current on new developments in mixing technology, explore
opportunities to improve both current
and future production lines, and to
make sure their companies remain in
the passing lane of global competition.

Go with the flow

Many engineers who visit the test laboratory of a mixer manufacturer are surprised by the fact that subtle changes
in a mixers configuration or operation
can yield an enormous improvement in
performance. Virtually all arrive with
at least an idea of the type of mixer
they want to use, and often their instincts turn out to be correct with
the simple addition of another agitator.
Example 1: Adding a low-shear agitator to create a uniform pigment
dispersion.2 The production engineer
in this case had used a high speed
disperser for years to disperse a variety of liquid pigment blends in a base
material. Operating in a batch with a
lotion-like consistency a viscosity
of approximately 20,000 cP the disperser provided plenty of shear energy.
A 10 h.p. disperser in a 50-gal batch
required about 60 min to complete
the dispersion. Trials were arranged
to search for potential improvements
related to blade size and design, and
perhaps the use of multiple blades
mounted on a single shaft.
At this batch size and viscosity, an
8-in.-dia. high-speed disperser operating with a tip speed of 5,000 ft/min
2. All of the test scenarios in this article are
drawn from actual trials in the Ross Test & Development Center in Hauppauge, NY. However,
certain details were omitted or changed to safeguard customer confidentiality or clarify the essential message of the example.

creates only a mild vortex. Pigments

added to the light-colored base material provide a vivid display of uniformity or in this case, slow progress
toward uniformity. Material near the
disperser was quickly dispersed and
assumed a uniform appearance. Meanwhile, slow-moving swirls of color near
the vessel wall indicated limited flow
within the batch.
In actual production, the cycle time
for this application had been 60 minutes, but most of that time was wasted.
The mixer dispersed the pigments immediately once they contacted the
blade. The limiting factor was the flow
within the vessel, not the blade design.
We recognized that flow could be improved by adding a low-shear agitator
that would complement the action of
the high shear agitator.
In a dual-shaft mixer, a slow-turning, two-wing anchor agitator improves
flow by moving material from the vessel wall toward the high shear agitator
(Figure 1). Teflon scrapers prevent a
layer from remaining on the wall and
bottom of the vessel. By improving
flow, the anchor essentially feeds material to the disperser and accelerates
the dispersion process.
With the complementary action of
these two agitators, the batch reached
target uniformity in 15 min, a 75%
improvement compared to the cycle
time required by the disperser operating alone.

An agitator for each stage

Mix cycles can often be accelerated by

identifying key inflection points during
the process and recognizing the need
to apply different forms of agitation
during different stages. Substantial
changes in viscosity, for example, generally distinguish one mixing stage from

another and signal the need

for a change in agitation.
Example 2: Adding a high
shear agitator to accommodate the lowered viscosity of a
conductive coating. The double planetary mixer has been around for more
than 50 years, and it is still a reliable
workhorse for high-viscosity mixing.
Since the dispersion of conductive carbon is generally processed at viscosities up to about 1 million cP during
the mix cycle, it is a typical application
for the double planetary mixer. In this
scenario, a manufacturer had already
used double planetary mixers to prepare conductive coatings. He scheduled a test to confirm the choice of a
new mixer for scale-up.
Replicating the process in the test
laboratory, conductive carbon powders
were added to a solvent base, along
with a variety of binder materials.
Planetary mixing required 20 min of
kneading at 1 million cP.
The next phase of the process was
far more time-consuming. Letting
the batch down from 1 million cP to
10,000 cP required 90 min, because
the solvent must be added slowly.
Dosing the solvent gradually allows
it to be incorporated without forming
clumps of the conductive paste, which
bob in the low-viscosity mix and resist
breaking down further.
The slow pace of the let-down stage
of this cycle made it an excellent target
for improvement. The key was to understand that it was slow only because
the mixing action of the planetary
blades became steadily less effective
as viscosity fell. At viscosities below
200,000 cP, planetary blades generate very little shear and are unable to
incorporate the low-viscosity diluent
into the paste.
The solution was to switch from a
traditional double planetary to a double planetary/disperser hybrid mixer
(Figure 2). This mixer extends the versatility of the double planetary mixer
by adding two disperser shafts, each of
which can be equipped with one or two
disperser blades. These high-speed
agitators orbit the vessel in tandem
with the planetary blades and apply
intense shear.
In this application, the high-shear
agitators were turned on for the

Chemical Engineering www.che.com July 2012

31

Feature Report
let-down, when the batch viscosity
reached 200,000 cP, and they became
steadily more efficient as the batch
viscosity dropped further. The dispersers easily disintegrated all clumps of
paste, and the 90-min let-down stage
was shortened to 15 min.

Sometimes more is less

Successful laboratory tests are generally characterized by such measures

as a faster mix cycle, a finer emulsion
or dispersion, improved end-product
quality, or increased efficiency (the
result of combining multiple process
steps in a single machine, for example). But sometimes a test can be
called a success after producing no
visible signs of product or process improvement and even after requiring
more pieces of equipment to achieve
the same effect as before.
Example 3: Mixing high-viscosity
polymers with less costly equipment. With high tensile strength and
elasticity, flexible polymer blends are
used in many industries to make a
multitude of extruded products. They
are commonly mixed in a sigma blade
mixer, which applies enormous pressure to crush the polymer pellets while
generating enough friction and heat to
melt the polymers in a 15-gal batch in
about 20 min. The mixing that follows
requires another 20 min.
The sigma blade mixer (Figure 3)
is immensely powerful, and with the
batch viscosity at about 5 million cP,
this application is hardly challenging.
But it is also a particularly expensive
mixer, so it is the best choice only
when the viscosity exceeds the capabilities of all other mixers. In fact, the
customer in this case had been using
sigma blade mixers because he believed there was no alternative.
Our test strategy was to apply recent design advances in planetary
blade design that have extended the
working capacity of double planetary
mixers well above their previous
working limit of about 2 million cP.
Equipped with helical blades (Figure 4), a double planetary mixer can
handle viscosities up to 8 million cP,
which makes it an attractive alternative to the sigma blade mixer in many
applications.
Compared to traditional, rectangu32

Figures 3 and 4. Sigma blade mixers (above) apply great power to mix
materials at extremely high levels of
viscosity. Recently, however, innovative
helical blades (right) have extended the
working viscosity of double planetary
mixers significantly. This has made
many high-viscosity applications appropriate for either a sigma blade mixer
or a planetary mixer

lar planetary blades, the new generation of blades is helical and precisely
sloped. The graceful slope enables the
helical blades to pass one another with
a slicing motion in the vessel. This
prevents the sudden spike in power
that typically occurs when the vertical
arms of rectangular blades pass one
another in a high-viscosity batch.
By suppressing this power spike, the
working viscosity of a double planetary
mixer equipped with helical blades
extends well beyond the 5 million cP
level this application requires. But in
this case the planetary mixer required
additional equipment to melt the polymers before mixing could begin.
This test was conducted in a 40-gal
double planetary mixer with thermal
jacketing, through which we circulated
oil at 350F. The polymers required 20
min to melt and another 20 min to
mix. They were then discharged with
a hydraulically actuated, automatic
discharge system.
The test results included no change
in cycle time or product quality, and
the test required three pieces of equipment where one had been used before.
But it was clearly successful because
the total cost of the new system was
more than 50% lower than the cost of
a new sigma blade mixer.

Advantages of pre-milling

Preconceptions built over many years

of practice are often hard to dispel.
In a test environment, they can be
especially costly if they are allowed
to discourage exploration. Engineers
who are willing to consider unfamiliar
technologies and unexpected solutions
are often rewarded with quantum improvements in production.

Chemical Engineering www.che.com July 2012

Example 4: An ultra-high shear

pre-mill makes downstream media
milling unnecessary for an aerospace pigment dispersion. Media
mills are a common sight in plants
producing fine dispersions. They can
produce excellent results, but they are
also notorious for their slow throughput and the laborious cleaning and
maintenance they require. To address
these shortcomings, high-speed rotor/
stator mixers are commonly used to
pre-mill materials, reduce particle size
significantly, and shorten the cycle
time required by the mill.
This test was arranged to measure
the performance of a traditional, single-stage high-shear mixer serving
as a pre-milling device (Figure 5). To
produce an aerospace coating, the engineer had been pre-mixing pigments
and an epoxy-based material in a
disperser-agitated vessel, then sending the mix downstream to the mill.
His goal was to save time and increase
production by feeding pre-milled material to the media mill.
The first test using the single-stage
rotor/stator mixer was successful. A
single pass through the inline mixer,
operating with a rotor/stator developing tip speeds of 3,500 ft/min, easily
met the target particle size.
A second test explored the performance of a completely different rotor/
stator concept, and the results were
even more dramatic. This time, the
pre-mix was fed through an ultrahigh-shear inline mixer (Figure 6).
Unlike the traditional single-stage
high shear mixer, the rotor/stator generator in the alternative setup does not
include conventional blades. Instead,
the rotor and stator are comprised of

Figure 6. This rotor/stator generator

represents a sharp departure from traditional rotor/stator design. This innovation
greatly extended the application of high
shear rotor/stator mixers by enabling them
to produce much finer dispersions and
emulsions
Figure 5. In the single-stage high
shear mixer, a high speed rotor turns
within a fixed stator, applies intense
shear in the high shear zone and expels
material radially through holes or slots
in the stator. Available in either batch
or inline configurations, this mixer has
been used for many years to pre-mill dispersions prior to media milling

many concentric rows of intermeshing

teeth. The mix material begins at the
center of the generator and moves outward through the rotor/stator teeth.
With extremely close tolerances and
high tip speeds (up to 18,000 ft/min),
the shear applied to the material in
each pass is extraordinarily intense.
In this test, the ultra-high-shear
rotor/stator mixer produced a premilled product that met the specification for final production in the media
mill. The low-flow, high-maintenance
mill was replaced by a high-flow, highspeed inline mixer. Overall production
was increased and long-term operating costs were cut significantly.

A fast remedy for fish eyes

A simple switch to a more aggressive

mixer design from a low shear propeller or turbine to a high shear rotor/
stator mixer, for example can yield
startling results. But in many cases,
to optimize the mixing process, a high
shear generator must be accompanied by an auxiliary device that delivers raw material directly to the high
shear zone.
Example 5: Dispersing powders
with sub-surface injection turns
an overnight chore into a 5-min.
process. Gum thickeners are used by
process engineers worldwide to make
a multitude of products from doughnut
fillings to the electrodes in flashlight
batteries. They are extraordinarily

versatile, but they are also frustrating to work with, because they are extremely hard to hydrate uniformly.
Instead of dispersing easily, most
gum thickeners float on the surface
of a liquid batch. Even when a highshear mixer is used to generate a vigorous vortex, the powder will float persistently, occasionally forming bulging
fish eyes, turning slow circles around
the rim of the vortex as it stubbornly
sinks into the liquid.
The engineer in this case followed
the century-old custom of adding gum
thickener to a water-based mix, in a
vessel equipped with a propeller, and
letting it run overnight. By morning,
the gum had finally dispersed and the
mix was ready for the next step. A test
was arranged to assess the value of
replacing the propeller with a batch
rotor/stator mixer.
In a 100-gal vessel, a 10-h.p. highshear mixer created a high quality dispersion and reduced the mix cycle from
8 h to 1 h (Figure 7). To anyone who
has seen a rotor/stator mixer in action,
this was actually not surprising.
A second test included a similar
rotor/stator mixer, but this one was
equipped with a sub-surface powder
injection device. The device sucked the
free-flowing powders through a tube
that delivered them still dry directly to the sub-surface high-shear
zone of the mixer, where they were
dispersed immediately. For a 2% concentration of gum thickener, the system injected all 16.7 lb of powder and
completed the dispersion in 5 min.

Maximize the value of testing

Process engineers who do not step

away from their process lines pe-

Figure 7. This batch-configured

high shear mixer is equipped with a
wand and feed tube that terminates beneath the surface of the batch. Powders
are sucked through the tube and injected directly into the high shear zone,
where they are dispersed instantly

riodically to reassess their mixing

equipment strategies are assuming
significant risk, especially in highly
competitive markets. As mixing technology continues to evolve, each advance you overlook may wind up on
the plant floor of your competitors.
And, as we have seen, even seemingly
small changes in your equipment configuration or mixing technique can
yield a significant improvement in
production and an important competitive advantage.
The best course is to visit the laboratory of a mixer manufacturer and test
using your own ingredients. Replicate
your process environment as closely
as possible. Choose a laboratory that
provides onsite analytical evaluation
of your test results, so you can modify your testing in realtime, based on
quantitative results.
Most important, be sure to test a variety of equipment, not just the equipment you expect to purchase or rent.
In order to discover unexpected success, youll have to explore some unfamiliar territory.

Edited by Rebekkah Marshall

Author
Ken Langhorn is technical director at Charles Ross
& Son Co. (710 Old Willets
Path, Hauppauge, NY 11788,
Phone: 631-234-0500; Fax:
631-234-0691; Email: [email protected]). He has
published many articles on
mixing and blending technology. Formerly an R&D
specialist at Ross, he holds
multiple patents for innovations in high shear and high viscosity mixing.
As manager of the Ross Test & Development
Center, he oversees a large program of testing
and process optimization for customers, along
with operations in the companys adjacent analytical laboratory.

Chemical Engineering www.che.com July 2012

33