Why Is Sigma Mixer Needed For The Production Of Food-grade CMC?

Food-grade CMC has high requirements for product purity, viscosity, degree of substitution (DS), and batch stability.

For CMC reaction systems with high solids content, low liquid-to-solid ratio, and high viscosity, ordinary stirring equipment often fails to achieve ideal mixing results. This is one of the important reasons why sigma mixers are widely used in CMC production processes.

Why are reactors not necessarily suitable for CMC reactions?

However, during the CMC etherification reaction, the materials may have the following characteristics:

• High solids content
• Relatively low liquid dosage
• Material viscosity continuously increases
• Cellulose is prone to agglomeration
• The reaction system is heterogeneous
• Material flowability is poor

If a conventional agitator is used, material movement may be more pronounced near the impeller blades, while areas further away from the blades may experience insufficient mixing.

Insufficient mixing affects the contact between the alkali solution and the etherifying agent with cellulose, thus impacting the final product's degree of substitution, viscosity, and batch consistency.

Why is sigma mixer suitable for CMC production?

The core advantage of a sigma mixer is its ability to handle high-viscosity, semi-solid, and high-solids materials that are difficult to process with traditional mixing equipment.

During CMC production, the kneading blades continuously push the material to tumble, squeeze, and shear, ensuring constant contact and exchange between cellulose, alkali, and etherifying agents at different locations.

Extrusion → Shearing → Flipping → Dispersion → Remixing

Continuously updating the state of the materials is crucial to maintaining a relatively homogeneous reaction system. This is especially important for CMC etherification reactions.

Advantages of CMC Sigma Mixer

1. Suitable for reaction systems with high solid content
2. Improves contact efficiency of reactants
3. Suitable for high viscosity and semi-solid materials
4. Beneficial for batch stability of products

Sigma mixers, with their forced extrusion, shearing, tumbling, and mixing capabilities, are better suited to high-viscosity reaction processes such as CMC etherification, making them an important choice for CMC production equipment.

Feel free to contact us to obtain equipment solutions and technical parameters suitable for your CMC production projects.

Tel: +86-181 3837 3963 (Whatsapp, Wechat)

Email: sigmamixer@outlook.com