Industrial facilities depend on mixers to mix various components and get the desired homogenous mixture. Industrial mixers have a global presence in many different markets such as paint, food, cement, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, ink and many more. As some recent surveys point out, the mixer market is estimated at about $600 million and is expected to reach $900 million in the following years. But the actual size of the global industrial mixing market can be done by utilizing data from many mixer manufacturers. There are hundreds of industrial mixer manufacturers in the world and they have all seen a big increase in sales in the previous year.
Some of the most used industrial mixers are mixing pulsed, mixing agitator, jet mixing, wave mixing machines and sonic probes. We swill focus on the mixing agitator and latest trends related to this industrial mixer. The mixing agitator procedure uses a propeller, which is located on the shaft attached to a motor, and the mixing process is done by rapid turnings of the propeller, also known as impeller and agitator. Mixing agitator is the most common form of industrial mixing liquids around the world and there are many reasons why. It is less expensive than other mixing techniques; it is easier and features portability; and there are many models to choose from.
Mixing agitator comes in many types. For example, glass-lined mixers are meant for pharmaceutical industry, dry solid mixers for powder coating and specific purpose mixers for more complicated mixing applications, especially for fluids with high viscosity and heavier products. The main ideal of mixing agitator came from Watkins in the late 70s, while in 90s the company JBW developed the impeller. The impeller consists of five blades welded evenly from the top and attached to the bottom. In fact, it looks as a turbine and mixes as a pump, but it works differently. First, it provides lift to the settled particles on the bottom than disperses them throughout its container, which results in great agitation.
Following the success of its impeller, JBW developed a complete mixing system with the impeller mounted in the center of the drum. This ‘pushed’ other manufacturers to design a mixing agitator and only few months later, R&D introduced its portable drum mixer. Now, in effort to beat the competition, JBW expended its products over other industries, including chemicals, adhesives, paper, food, wood, cosmetic and many others. In the following years, JBW invented a bung hole mixer, but there were not enough applications to begin production. But in 2006, the company was asked to produce 300 mixers for bung holes and JBW responded within a week with smaller version of the original mixing agitators.
