Mixing and more: The continuous co-rotating, overlapping twin-screw mixer
Equipment that performs several process steps can not only reduce the number of machines in your operation, but cut your labor requirements as well. One example is a continuous co-rotating, overlapping twin-screw mixer, which can provide several process steps in addition to mixing. The mixer's operation can be fine-tuned to closely control the effects of shearing, heating, and cooling on your viscous mixture. After discussing some basic mixing principles and twin-screw mixer variations, this article explains how the co-rotating, overlapping twin-screw unit operates, examines the mixer's processing stages, and details several applications. Related information discusses the importance of selecting a continuous mixer before -- not after -- your product's development.
Traditionally, the goal of mixing is to uniformly distribute or blend one [or more] ingredient with another. For instance, in batch mixing, ingredient A is mixed with ingredient B and blended until the mixture has uniform consistency.