Static Mixer Increases Production Rates and Productivity Yield When Used for Adding Pigments
Adding a pigment color to a dynamic mixer that is also used for non-colored products creates color contamination of the wetted parts and results in increased labor as well as production time and yield losses that directly affect the bottom line. The Kenics® KM Series static mixer, manufactured and marketed by Chemineer, Inc., provides an alternative solution to adding pigment color that eliminates typical contamination problems and improves the quality of the finished product.
A manufacturer was using the same dynamic mixer to process different batches of material. Some of the batches required the addition of a pigment color while other batches required no colorant adder. As expected, the pigment colorants contaminated all wetted surfaces that they came in contact with, including all wetted end dynamic mixer components. Regardless of the thoroughness of the cleaning process between batches, this situation still resulted in high yield loss of the batches that were processed immediately after a pigmented batch, and oftentimes production of a defective end product from contaminated batches that went unnoticed. In addition, the cleaning process itself resulted in lost production due to system flush down time of the wetted surfaces and the resulting system drain down time post cleaning.