machinery feature | Mixers
Pegasus can “mix, intensively and effectively, widely divergent powders, granules and extruded products, without exerting a mechanical load. Within five to 30 seconds for almost all solids with a very wide range of bulk density and composition, a homogeneous mixture will be achieved.” The working principle is that the design and position of the paddles on two shafts, in combination with a low fill ratio, creates a fluidized zone in which the various materials are optimally dispersed, very quickly. The Pegasus is aimed at applications across a wide range of industries from muesli to cement, but Dinnissen was exhibiting at K2013 with the intention of increasing its business in the plastics industry. Harburg-Freudenberger Maschinenbau is a leader in rubber mixing systems and has recently expanded its activities through the acquisition of Coperion’s Univer- sal Mixer business, which was announced in July.
Harburg-Freudenberger is itself part of the HF Mixing Group, which acquired Pomini Rubber & Plastics in 2007 and Farrel in 2008. Harburg-Freudenberger’s Universal Mixers are
marketed under the name and logo Umix. Until 1985, Universal Mixers had already been engineered and manufactured in Freudenberg, when the predecessors of Coperion and Harburg-Freudenberger were both part of Werner & Pfleiderer. The Umix machines differ from internal mixers by
their less rigid design. Their fields of application are mainly products of medium and low viscosity and thus require considerably lower investment and operation costs.
Carter Brothers is another name more associated with rubber than with plastics, with its range of heavy-duty internal mixers, but managing director Peter Fletcher says that the company has customers around
Continuous improvements
Farrel Pomini says that its continuous mixers compete more with twin-screw extruders and co-kneaders than they do with batch mixers. They can produce a wide range of compounds without making any changes to the hardware. Instead, just four process variables are adjusted: feed rate, rotor speed, chamber tempera- ture and the size of the output orifice. Farrel Pomini is the continuous mixers
business unit within the HF Mixing Group. After HF acquired Farrel and Pomini several years ago, it merged their plastics machinery divisions in 2011, bringing together Farrel’s FCM and Pomini’s LCM continuous mixer technologies. The LCM is derived from the FCM, as Pomini had earlier produced the FCM under licence.
The continuous mixer was invented by
Farrel in 1961, and was originally aimed at rubber processing. However, the high costs of materials in granular form restricted the benefits of the continuous process in this sector. The technology has since found a more suitable fit in plastics processing, where polymer pellets are well suited to its metered dosing requirements. Farrel Pomini continuous mixers have
found niches in highly filled compounding and masterbatch applications, but they are also widely used for processing tempera- ture-sensitive materials such as PVC. The continuous mixer is part of a
two-stage process which splits mixing and pressurisation. The mixer incorpo-
rates two counter-rotating rotors and a discharge gate. The rotors incorporate a feed flight section for material feeding and a relatively short double helix mixing section. Pressurisation takes place in a second stage using an extruder. The relatively large clearances of the
FCM rotors, combined with the forward and reverse action inside the mixing chamber, facilitates excellent mixing performance with reduced peak energy and heat generation, says Farrel Pomini. The company offers continuous mixers
in two formats: the stand-alone UM version for high-volume applications, and the CP Series II Compact Processor, an integrated combination of a continuous mixer and a single-screw extruder both mounted on a single frame. These machines are capable of throughputs from 125 to 4,000 kg/hour. The CP4000 is the latest and largest model in the range, and first deliveries will be made in 2014. Paul Lloyd, business unit director for
The FCM rotors have relatively large clearances and
generate a forward and reverse action
62 COMPOUNDING WORLD | November 2013
Farrel Pomini continuous compounding systems, says that FCM business grew in 2013 and is likely to continue to grow as the market improves and as restructuring of the business unit pays dividends. “We have a better market focus now,” he says. ❙
www.farrel-pomini.com
www.compoundingworld.com
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