Powder Problems: A Fine Mess

We have all done it, tried to make a drink with some sort of powder being added, especially anyone who has ever mixed a protein shake or made hot chocolate from the powder they found in the back of the cupboard from who knows when.

You realize you’ve made a mistake by adding the powder before the water, and now half of it is stuck at the bottom of the cup. You then get a spoon and try to mix the two together, and it all clumps together. You end up spending more time trying to mix and mash the concoction together longer than you get to enjoy your drink. No matter how much you stir or shake, you still end up getting globs of mush in your mouth. Now imagine that at an industrial scale, where the mixed volumes go from a 400 mL cup to a 35,000 L vessel. And that time you took trying to get all the clumps broken out, that same scale-up compounds and wastes operating capital. It’s not just taking longer to make a batch of product; it now needs more energy to be imparted into the fluid, maintain temperature of the batch, and can provide inconsistent results in the final product.

So, what is the solution? Well, there are a few options available. The first is a basic impeller type that can be added to help disperse solids; it's called a "sawtooth." Just like the name implies, this looks like a circular saw blade, but the edges are bent up and down in an alternating pattern. These impellers cannot create any flow and depend on another impeller to get the ingredients in motion. What really is needed is a purposely designed high-shear impeller. Depending on your application, we have many options to provide this type of agitation. For this article, I am going to focus on the Rotosolver from Admix.

The Admix Rotosolver head pulls the ingredients from above and below and forces them through a rapidly rotating series of slots. The slots are designed to break up, shear and quickly incorporate the ingredients together. Using a Rotosolver in your process can save 30 to 50% in energy and can make a batch up to 6 times faster. This eliminates the issue of fisheyes, uneven homogenization, and the all too familiar clumps of unmixed powders.

Have more questions on improving your process? Call us today and one of our representatives will be happy to have a technical discussion about your process needs and what equipment would be best suited for a solution. No matter your production size, T.D. Rooke is here to help you upgrade, scale, or improve your production.