Modern material preparation in ceramics: Dispersing mixer – a tried and tested solution that is suitable for processing slurries and suspensions for the ceramic universe

Reference	Presenter	Authors (Institution)	Abstract
13-015	Alban Bunjaku	Cardoso, J.(Eirich Industrial Ltda.); Bunjaku, A.(Maschinenfabrik Gustav Eirich GmbH & Co KG);	Various techniques are available for the production of suspensions and emulsions. With these mechanical dispersing techniques, the dispersing tool is required to both move the material and perform the dispersing process; in addition, the machines are generally only designed for a certain dispersion viscosity range, and the processing times are long. With this dispersing technology is different. It can be used to process a free choice of viscosity ranges (and consistencies), and this within processing times of just minutes. The dispersing mixers here presented, which are now also known as Mix Solvers, have been in use for decades in many others industries. They are used to process e.g. coating pigments for paper manufacturing, microsilica or pigment suspensions, road marking compounds, printer toner, lithium-ion compounds for rechargeable batteries and spray slip/casting slip e.g. for tiles, sanitary ceramics and technical ceramics, such as dispersions for film casting processes. At this presentation, we intend to show and demonstrate the results of some works obtained in laboratories and replicated in scale. For manufacturers of technical ceramics, there is a property of the dispersing mixer that is of particular interest: by virtue of the system, upscaling is very straightforward. This is important because the production process is normally preceded by development of the formulation in the laboratory. In the same way, dispersing mixers are in use in many institutions and universities; a process developed for new products can be easily upscaled from a laboratory mixer to a production mixer. In addition, both intrinsically viscous (shear-thinning) and dilatant (shear-thickening) suspensions can be reproducibly manufactured. Here, the purity of the material is preserved, as contamination with abrasion from the parts that come into contact with product is prevented through the use of corresponding linings and armor coating.
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