LABORATORY COMPOUNDERS | MACHINERY
Lab-scale compounders deliver big dividends
Development, testing and scaling up production of new compounds makes laboratory machines a vital part of the compounding landscape. Mark Holmes finds out more
Increased use of recycled plastics, bio-based polymers and the need to process shear and thermally sensitive materials makes developing new formulations and processing parameters an ever more challenging task. The ability to trial new materials in the laboratory and to be confident about moving into a production environment is now an essential part of the compound recipe and process development process. With that goal in mind, machinery manufacturers are designing compounders and ancillary items that fulfil labora- tory requirements while demonstrating the ability to scale up in production. According to Leistritz Extrusionstechnik,
recycling and biopolymers developments, as well as the demand in the production of films for battery production, are leading to higher demands and new challenges for laboratory compounders. “When new materials become available to replace traditional ones, a lot of formulation development has to take place to fulfil the final product specifica- tions. This takes place in the laboratory first before the fixed formulations are tested on the production line,” says Christopher Helms, Head of the Process Department. “The main requirements of a laboratory com- pounder are flexibility and easy adaptation to new processes, as well as a comparable set-up to the production lines. As the line needs to be designed to produce small batches to test new formulations, the process challenges also change quite frequent- ly. Therefore, the machine needs to be highly flexible regarding the changing of screw geom- etries and adaptation of additional equipment,” he says. “The second most important aspect is comparability to the production line. This means the process set-up, screw geometry and extrusion parameters, as well as the basic geometry of the extruder. Easy transferability from laboratory to production line and vice versa is only possible if there is geometric similarity between the two lines.
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This is possible when using the ZSE MAXX line with a constant OD/ID ratio and constant specific torque density through the whole machine series.” The company’s latest development, available on
all extruders including its laboratory compounders, is intelligent process monitoring using the Leistritz Elongational Rheometer. “Melt quality is decisive for product quality. Errors in the extrusion process lead to waste of costly resources. At the same time, the challenge is to recognise these errors in advance in order to avoid mistakes. This is where the Leistritz Inline Elongational Rheometer comes in. It identifies melt parameters in real time and thus saves costs and improves product quality sustainably and reliably,” says Helms. The momentum towards sustainable materials, including both bio-based polymers and recyclates, and the rapidly changing landscape of formulas and potential applications is a dynamic force for all compounding operations today, including labora- tory-sized machines, according to Farrel Pomini. “The temperature sensitive nature of the materials, such as recycled PVC, PHA, PLA and
Main image: Feeding flexibility is a key require- ment in many laboratory compounding applications
December 2021 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 41
IMAGE: THERMO SCIENTIFIC
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