Blog-News
Infographic: Lancaster Products Materials Testing Process
Lancaster Products is dedicated to process and mix design optimization. Whether you are looking to develop a new process/product or improve on an existing process, Lancaster Products can help. From mixing to granulating or pelletizing, our experienced application engineers can design toward many objectives, including: mixing cycle times, binder and minors optimization, homogeneity, particle hardness, moisture and air entrainment, particle size distributions and yields.
Lancaster Products Announces New Website Launch
January 4, 2019
For Immediate Release
LEBANON, Pennsylvania – The new and completely redesigned website offers visitors richer insight into the Company’s high efficiency mixing, pelletizing and crushing solutions for a wide variety of industries and materials.
What to Expect from Lancaster Products High Shear Mixer Sample Testing
Our last post focused on our experience in concept testing and how it applies to our high shear mixer sample testing process. This post will dig in a little deeper and provide insight into the breadth of data we provide to our customers when they commission Lancaster Products to provide sample testing for them.
Over the past 30 years, we have collaborated with our customers to perform proof of concept testing in our K1 laboratory mixers for thousands of materials samples. The desired outcome of the testing is customer dependent but typical requirements are along the lines of pelletizing/granulating to specific size ranges and desired yields, mixing to achieve homogenization, or reduced reaction times of existing processes. Outcomes provided are 1) proof of concept in achieving the desired product, and/or 2) optimization of the current mix processes. Our engineers perform the tests in our controlled laboratory, log all key information in our database, and share all data with our customers for future reference. Below is a list that summarizes some of the information we collect during every test run we perform:
Introducing Lancaster Products High Shear Counter-Current Mixer Recipe Development
Introducing Lancaster Products High Shear Counter-Current Mixer Recipe Development, the first in a category of posts designed to provide insight into our deep experience in developing thousands of pelletized and granulated formulations over the past 30 years.
We develop custom recipes or mix designs for our customers that are rooted in our deep mixing and pelletizing experience. Because every customer’s materials, parameters and processes are different, each requires a unique mix design. In performing proof of concept testing, we have worked with our customers on a wide variety of materials and binder combinations across many different industries. While specific formulations belong to our customers, we have learned a tremendous amount from our experiences with various materials and we wanted to highlight the science that goes into every formulation developed by our materials processing engineers.
High Shear Counter-Current: Simply the Most Effective Mixing Technology Available
High shear counter-current mixers from Lancaster Products simply employ the most effective mixing technology available.
- Features
- Game Changing Mixing Technology
- Applications
- Materials Processing
- Performance Features
- The Most Effective Mixing Technology
Download the Lancaster Products High Shear Counter-Current Mixing Technology Brochure
The Role of Binders in High Shear Mixing, Pelletizing, and Granulating
Binders are a key ingredient in agglomerating, granulating and pelletizing applications. Considered an inactive ingredient, Binders are critical in allowing for agglomeration and holding the structure of the pellets together. Many of our customers are pleasantly surprised of how efficiently the Lancaster High Shear Counter Current Mixer can pelletize utilizing low amounts of binders when compared to alternate methods of granulation. The advantage lies in the Lancaster Mixer’s ability to rapidly homogenize tiny amounts of minor ingredients into large amounts of majors. Because the binder is so efficiently dispersed throughout the mix, only the optimal amount of binder is used. Less effective mixing techniques require more binder than in a Lancaster Mixer, because the binder is not as effectively dispersed throughout the mix.
Lancaster Products High Shear Mixer Design Enhancements – Discharge Assemblies
Lancaster Products has introduced design enhancements to the K-Series High Shear Counter Current Mixer line. Through our continuous improvement initiatives our engineers identified various areas of design refinement focused on improving our customer’s maintenance experience, reducing manufacturing time and enhancing the mixer’s overall design. We are featuring our new and enhanced discharge assembly design.
Keyless connections
Lancaster Product engineers created a simple yet elegant solution to improve the discharge valve design by moving from a keyed assembly to a keyless locking device. The new design is less complex than its predecessor and performs better than the previous discharge style. The new keyless connection enhances performance over the old design and will be easier to maintain and service.
Improvements in Processing Chicken Manure Based Fertilizer
Chicken manure is a common ingredient in residential, commercial, and industrial fertilizer products due to its high nutrient content and widespread availability. In an unprocessed form, raw chicken manure can burn and damage plants, contains harmful pathogens to people and animals and is difficult to handle. Because using unprocessed manure as a fertilizer is not a viable commercial option, processes must be established to utilize heat to kill pathogens and then granulate manure into a useful, transportable, and sellable product. In granulated form, chicken manure based fertilizer offers several advantages over powdered based fertilizers such as decreased nutrient runoff, easier transportability and handling and more controlled spreading.
Manufacturing Cold Set Ceramics from Fly Ash
The environmental and economic benefits of using fly ash aggregates in concrete admixtures are well documented with adoption continually growing across industry[1]. The critical factor in managing this abundantly available waste from coal fired power plants is in converting it on-site at the lowest cost to both the materials processors and for sale to end users. The best way to cut processing costs is to lower capital equipment costs and increase efficiencies in production. Lancaster Products has successfully worked with Nometrain Pty. Ltd. from Queensland, Australia, to develop processes with a Lancaster High Shear Counter-Current Mixer to produce granulated Cold Set Ceramic products. This Cold Set Ceramic process uses a chemical reaction to cure the fly ash into a ceramic product which eliminates the need for kilns commonly used to fire fly ash agglomerates after they are pelletized in our high shear mixers. Nometrain has developed an environmentally safe, proprietary process that utilizes chemicals instead of water with the fly ash mix which “cures at ambient temperatures to produce a matrix with exceptional early green strength, and which cures over time[2].” This revolutionary process does away with the need for kiln firing eliminating an additional piece of expensive equipment and greatly reduces the energy costs typically associated with the firing of fly ash agglomerates. The partnership with Lancaster Products has allowed Nometrain the ability to utilize the Lancaster Mixer to create agglomerates of varying sizes at 90+% yields in an extremely short mix cycle.
Blending of Dissimilar Powders to Achieve Homogenous Mixtures Using High Shear Mixers
Many of the mix requirements presented to our engineers start with the need to blend powders of dissimilar properties into a homogeneous mix. It’s not uncommon for customers to discover that the equipment they currently use or are considering for use either does not produce the level of homogeneity specified or the process takes too long. We take great pride in seeing their faces light up when we show them the results that can be achieved using a Lancaster Products High Shear Counter-Current mixer!
Vastly differing densities of powders can present unique problems when attempting to achieve a desired homogenous mixture. In particular, we have experienced this in the technical ceramics industry where the key ingredients often have dissimilar densities. The issue is further compounded in cases where the ratio of ingredients can be significantly unbalanced with 95% of the mixture containing ingredient “A” and the other 5% consisting of ingredients “B, C, D…”.
Lancaster Products
920 Mechanic Street
Lebanon, PA 17046
Local: 717.273.2111
Toll Free: 800.447.7351
Email: [javascript protected email address]
Office Hours:
Mon - Fri: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
