Mixing & Blending 82

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Conical Blender
The Cycone blender is a vertical conical screw blender that easily handles all types of materials, including foods, pellets, and grains. It performs quick and precise mixing of batches in a single vessel with nonsegregation during discharge. The rotating screw does not have a bottom bearing support, eliminating dead spots, preventing the creation of areas that are difficult to clean, and allowing for full-bore open discharging of product. Discharge of the material is fast and simple. Rotating with the mixing screw is a spray nozzle that allows the user to inject liquid or gas ingredients into the batch. This feature can also be used for automatic CIP cleaning. For more-intense mixing, a sidewall-mounted lump breaker can be incorporated.
Bolz-Summix, Swedesboro, NJ 856-241-9970 www.bolz-summix.com

Pneumatic Blending Systems
Pneumatic blending is a quick, clean, and efficient method of obtaining homogenous batches of powdered, granular, or abrasive materials in transporters, atmospheric bins, and storage silos. The Model 244 and Model 277 pneumatic blenders are equipped with 6 or 12 wear-resistant aerators mounted around a housing cone. When the aeration valves are pulsed, gentle blasts of compressed air are injected into the batch at various angles, gently and continuously lifting the materials upward and outward until the blending target is achieved. Built with few moving parts, these blenders have long service lives and require minimal maintenance.
Nol-Tec Systems Inc., Lino Lakes, MN 651-780-8600 www.nol-tec.com

Powder-Dissolving High-Shear Jet Mixer
This powder-dissolving high-shear jet mixer with no moving parts and double venturi was designed to mix powders into liquids. The first venturi creates a full vacuum in the powder chamber, causing the powder to be absorbed into the liquid. The second venturi, with a patented mixing chamber, ensures high-shear mixing of the powder and liquid materials. The system can be designed for in-line or circulatory operation, allowing the operator to recirculate a batch as long as needed to obtain the desired finished product. The supply of powder can be designed for manual or fully automatic processing with all ancillary equipment provided in a complete turnkey system.
Jongia Co., Swedesboro, NJ 856-241-9970 www.mpegroup.com/jongia

Powder Induction System
The Fastfeed powder induction system provides consistent powder delivery even as viscosity and solids levels increase, ensuring that the system will never plug or foul. The system offers the benefits of an in-line, skid-mounted dispersion system that feeds powders and disperses them instantly. It delivers powder in-line at controlled feed rates from 3 to 200 lb/min and allows processors to ergonomically add dry ingredients to mix vessels, reducing operator injuries and providing the shear required for changing and for tougher ingredients. This method enables maximum yield.
Admix, Manchester, NH 800-466-2369 www.admix.com

High-Performance Mixers
Pictured is a food-grade all-stainless-construction Phlauer mixer complete with a zero-pressure-heating jacket and with the liquid tank and pipe trace rated for 35 psi. Heating takes place via process water. The mixer is on load cells that measure the powder ingredient. For this application, the ingredient is measured using a flowmeter and requires bleeding of the line at start-up. Liquid is applied using air pressure over the liquid that pushes it through a drip pipe. Other options for liquid addition are spray nozzles or a distribution pipe (for high liquids). The mixers are used in high-volume production and do not degrade product.
A&J Mixing International Inc., Oakville, ON, Canada 800-668-3470 www.ajmixing.com

Twin-Shaft Mixer
The Bella fluidized-zone mixer achieves fast, precise, high-capacity, low-shear mixing of either dry bulk solids or liquids with solids. Regardless of particle size, shape, or density, materials are mixed with a fast, efficient, and gentle action, with typical mixing times of 60 seconds or less. A weightless zone created by low-speed counter-rotating shafts generates low friction without shear. This operation makes the mixer suitable for fragile products that cannot tolerate rough handling. Even flakes or spray-dried bodies remain intact. It is available in stainless steel for sanitary applications.
Dynamic Air Inc., St. Paul, MN 651-484-2900 www.dynamicair.com

Fluidizing Paddle Blender
The APS fluidizing paddle blender offers a balance of mixing speed and efficiency with low equipment cost and low consumed power. Traditional ribbon blender applications benefit from increased capacity in the same space. Difficult and diverse ingredients can be mixed quickly and efficiently.
American Process Systems, Gurnee, IL 847-336-2444 www.apsmixers.com

Cylindrical Plow Blender
This cylindrical plow blender handles materials that are extremely fibrous, interlocking, dense, abrasive, or moist or oily. The horizontally oriented mixing shaft rotates approximately four times faster than the shafts of trough-style ribbon, paddle, and plow blenders, filling the entire mixing vessel with fluidized material, maximizing transfer rates, and minimizing impact and degradation. The unit can achieve 100% uniform blends in ratios to one part per thousand, blend faster than trough-style horizontal mixers, and handle a greater variety of materials, with the exception of pastes. It can be equipped with spray nozzles to coat or agglomerate particles.
Munson Machinery Co. Inc., Utica, NY 800-944-6644 www.munsonmachinery.com

Vertical Blender
This vertical blender is suitable for blending easily degradable solids. The mixing screw rotates around the periphery of the cone and simultaneously lifts materials from the bottom to the top of the blender. This dual blending action results in short cycle times. Vertical blenders are suitable for blending high-density powders or easily friable powders. The unit also discharges fully and cleans easily. Designs are available from 1 through more than 500 cu ft. A variety of options are available, including choppers for size reduction, spray nozzles for minor liquid addition, cleanout doors, numerous construction materials, and sanitary designs.
Charles Ross & Son Co., Hauppauge, NY 800-243-7677 www.mixers.com

Dense-Phase Blender/Conveyor
The dense-phase BlendVeyor system combines automatic batching, blending, and conveying of dry bulk solids from multiple sources in programmed ratios by weight. The system conveys at low line velocities and high material-to-air ratios to minimize product degradation and line wear. While built-in load cells weigh ingredients as they are added, an easy-to-program touch screen controller monitors ingredient loading and adjusts flow to achieve the desired ingredient weights. When all ingredients have been added, the controller automatically initiates the blend sequence and then cycles the unit for conveying the recipe to a mixing station or to packaging or loadout.
Cyclonaire Corp., York, NE 888-593-6241 www.cyclonaire.com

Conical Screw Blender
The Saturn conical screw blender is used for mixing and blending powders and can be supplied in carbon steel, various grades of stainless steel, and other exotic alloys. Sizes from 2 to 2650 cu ft are available. The unit’s tapered screw is more efficient than a straight screw. This design reduces the unit’s total overall height, decreases the blending time, and improves the blender’s efficiency.
Jaygo Inc., Union, NJ 908-688-3600 www.jaygoinc.com

Split-Shaft Seals for Mixers
MECO seals are available fully split to retrofit mixers, blenders, and most other rotating bulk-process equipment without the removal of bearings or drives. They are custom-designed and manufactured to fit each application, achieving complete containment of dry powders, pastes, slurries, corrosives, fluids, solvents, vapors, and gases—applications in which traditional packings fail to seal. This patented seal concept works like a thrust bearing; there are no internal springs to loosen, corrode, or break. A driving elastomer is the seals’ only contact with the shaft, protecting them from abrasion damage. The seals accommodate radial shaft misalignment, shock loads, and thermal shaft growth in high-temperature processes. Sanitary designs that can be easily disassembled for routine cleaning are available.
Woodex Bearing Co. Inc., Georgetown, ME 800-526-8800 www.woodex-meco.com

Twin-Rotor Mixer
The twin-rotor Hydramix gently mixes and hydrates a wide variety of dry or sticky materials in a continuous flow without clogging. Rotor speed is about 10 rpm, which minimizes material shear and particle degradation, even during long residence times. The unit is capable of high production rates and residence times in excess of 60 minutes. Mixing speed and paddle angle can be adjusted separately, allowing operators to vary the mixing energy imparted to the material independently from conveying speed. Liquid-injection nozzles can be located near the feed inlet or anywhere along the length for staged addition. Typical applications include blending feed supplements, fertilizers or pesticides and hydration of phosphates or soda ash. The self-cleaning, intermeshing-paddle design features precise tolerances between rotor paddles and the container wall to reduce material buildup. A jacketed model allows rotors to be heated or cooled to promote reaction, prevent sticking, or remove excess heat.
Bepex International, Minneapolis, MN 612-331-4370 www.bepex.com

Custom-Designed Mixers
Company offers custom-designed mixing equipment, including this food-grade mixer with nearly 360° of jacketed contact surface for maximum heat transfer. The hybrid paddle/ribbon style agitator was built with tight clearances to the trough to ensure efficient heat transfer. The continuous inner reversing ribbon spiral helps level the product during mixing, allowing greater batch capacities. All product contact surfaces are polished to a 150-grit sanitary finish. The all-welded, open-spoke agitator design allows clean-in-place nozzles to wash the interior surfaces of the mixer between batches. Split stuffing-box shaft seals enable easy removal and cleaning. Exterior surfaces are jacketed with vinyl-clad insulation.
Marion Mixers Inc., Marion, IA 319-377-6371 www.marionmixers.com

Gravimetric Batch Blenders
The ProRate gravimetric blender accurately and continuously meters raw materials from one to eight ingredient feeders into a central station hopper. Its design allows for varying capacities of 20 to 30,000 lb/hr per blender. The blender is available in 2.5-, 5-, and 12-kg sizes and handles 300 to more than 5000 lb of material per hour, depending on the accuracy setting. Each ingredient is dispensed sequentially into a common weighing hopper in the desired proportion. The weighed materials are then released into a separate mixing chamber, providing the most consistent blend of any batch-type blender.
Premier Pneumatics Inc., Salina, KS 785-826-9302 www.premierpneumatics.com

Batch Mixer
The Jumbo Quik Mix combines a material-dispersing paddle with a direct-drive vertical auger to create a high-speed blending action that ensures complete, uniform mixing of pellets, regrinds, color concentrates, and other free-flowing materials in 30 minutes or less for batches up to 25,000 lb. After the batch mixing cycle, the material is discharged into either gaylords or a pneumatic conveying pick-up point. The batch timer and motor controls are simple and easy to use, and the mixer’s rugged construction provides trouble-free operation in the harshest plant environments.
NBE Inc., Holland, MI 616-399-2220 www.nbe-inc.com

Sanitary Blenders
Company offers sanitary blenders for food, cosmetic, and dairy applications. The unit is a vacuum-rated blender that is suitable for loading and unloading ingredients with dense-phase conveying. The mixer is designed with a 360° cylindrical stainless-steel trough. A combination paddle/ribbon agitator is fitted with 0.02-in. clearance to the bottom of the trough for efficient blending and consistent cleanout between batches. An inner ribbon spiral levels product, allowing greater batch capacities. High-intensity choppers provide size reduction and dispersion of minor ingredients. Inlet ports for CO₂ and oil are located near the cutter heads. All interior and exterior surfaces are continuously welded and polished. Reinforced access doors are sealed with removable O-ring-style gaskets for quick disassembly and cleaning.
Lowe Industries, Marion, IA 319-447-9724 www.lowemixers.com