A high-shear mixer can be used to create emulsions, suspensions, lyosols (gas dispersed in liquid), and granular products.
It is used in the adhesives, chemical, cosmetic, food, pharmaceutical, and plastics industries for emulsification, homogenization, particle size reduction, and dispersion.
[5][6] In an inline high-shear rotor–stator mixer, the rotor–stator array is contained in a housing with an inlet at one end and an outlet at the other, and the rotor driven through a seal.
Inline high-shear mixers offer a more controlled mixing environment, take up less space, and can be used as part of a continuous process.
Otherwise known as high-shear powder inductors, these systems have the advantage of keeping the process on the floor level instead of working with heavy bags on mezzanines.
The high-shear mixer processes the solid material down to the desired particle size, and the mixture is then pumped to the drying bed where the fluid is removed, leaving behind the granular product.
[12] In an ultra-high-shear inline mixer, the high-shear mixing takes place in a single or multiple passes through a rotor–stator array.
The rotor–stator array can also include a mechanism whereby the momentum of the flow is changed (for example by forcing it sideways through the stator), allowing for more processing in a single pass.
[3] High-shear mixers are used at throughout the chemical process industries, wherever it is necessary to produce standardized mixtures of ingredients that do not naturally mix.