Continuous blending

Batch blenders come in many different designs and sizes, and make use of a wide range of blending mechanisms. In the pharmaceutical industry, batch blenders are used almost exclusively. The primary reason for this is that batch blending has historically provided tighter quality control in terms of better uniformity and batch integrity, as compared to continuous blending. Continuous mixers are discussed later on in this section. 

After curing, the blends continue to show a Tg for the rubber at about -20 °C, indicative of a phase-separated structure. The T , peak for the XPCL was shifted to 50-55 °C, endotherm intensities were reduced and for the low-molecular-weight XPCL blend the crystal-melting endotherm was absent results were consistent with restricted crystallisation of PCL in the cured blends. 

Table 16.1 Summary of the Mechanical Properties of Nonbiodegradable Polymer and PLA Blends (Continued)...

Many of the batch mixers can be modified to operate in the semi-batch (semi-continuous) mode by feeding the material to be blended continuously or by withdrawing the blended material continuously. By the same token, many of the continuous mixers can be made to operate in the semi-continuous or semi-batch mode. 

Note that the development of phase morphology in polymer blends continues to be an important up-to-date research topic in many laboratories in universities or industries. The underlying challenge is to reduce the material development cost by keeping acceptable performances. Sometimes new approaches are explored to reach that objective. 

---