TECHNOLOGY | QUALITY CONTROL


Right: Hydramotion’s ViscoMelt melt flow analyser is powered by a breakthrough new sensor technology called Scorpion


flow monitoring. Depending on whether the question is ‘How does it flow in my process?’ or ‘What is happening to the polymer structure?’, we can now provide the best measurement method – capillary or oscillatory – directly where the material is being made or processed.”


Recyclate variability “The push for lighter, stronger, and more sustain- able materials is driving compounders toward more complex formulations,” said John Rowe, Chief Marketing Officer at Hydramotion. This complexity involves more fillers, additives, and recycled materials, which can all affect melt behaviour and processability and make the compounding process harder to control. “Recycled materials in particular introduce a lot


of variability. For virgin material, feedstock quality typically lands within 1% tolerance, but for recy- clate it can be as wide as 10%,” said Rowe. “The pressure on incorporating higher blends of recycled materials means people need new tools to help them respond to that variability in real time, to keep processes running smoothly and products in-spec.”


While lab tests continue to be important for compliance and incoming quality control, these are insufficient for real-time decision making. “The material is changing in real-time during mixing or blending, so spot-checks are often inadequate for real control purposes,” he said. Hydramotion supplies process viscosity sensors


and introduced an in-line melt flow analyser for polymer compounding and extrusion called ViscoMelt. The new analyser uses the company’s Scorpion sensor technology to provide real-time data, directly from the melt stream, on melt flow, viscosity, and viscoelastic properties that directly relate to MFI, IV, and molecular weight. These measurements were previously only available from laboratory-based tests or from large, expensive mechanical devices, requiring sample extraction, said Rowe. The new system is a direct inline replacement for


traditional capillary rheometers or lab-based MFI testers. The solid-state design is low maintenance with no moving parts, gearboxes, or melt pumps. It can be installed into standard extruder ports or downstream transfer piping. Rowe said that changes in the viscoelastic response of the melt due to variations in the formulation components can be picked up quickly by the system, which allows quick response and better control of the compounding process. “One key challenge in compounding is the


18 COMPOUNDING WORLD | August 2026


limited real-time visibility into what is happening within the melt itself,” said Rowe. Variables such as screw speed, torque, temperature and pressure provide visibility into the extruder’s operating state, rather than the rheological state of the material. The effect of those processing conditions on melt rheology inside the extruder is largely inferred, rather than directly observed, he explained. With inline measurement of the melt rheology itself, however, melt changes are seen directly in real time and the process can be adjusted in response.


Inline improvements Equitech International’s inline spectroscopy technology measures reflected colour directly from the polymer melt and links these measurements to automatic feeder adjustments, to correct colour variation faster. “For plastics compounders, Equitech’s objective is to transform colour meas- urement from a delayed laboratory inspection into an active part of extrusion process control,” said Jonathan Babaie, Director of Technology at Equitech. The company’s latest is EquiSPEC µ, a compact,


lower-cost instrument with customisable LED illumi- nation and fast measurement capability. It is particularly suitable for pilot lines, space-con- strained extrusion systems, OEM integration, and applications that need dependable real-time colour and process information without the full dual-beam performance of the EquiSPEC HP platform, Babaie said. Ampacet offers two innovative LIAD Smart solutions for inline colour measurement and correction, the Spectro PMD (Pellet Measurement


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IMAGE: HYDRAMOTION


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