TWO-ROLL

Two-Roll Mills These mills contain two parallel rolls mounted in a heavy frame with provision for accurately regulating the pressure and distance between the rolls. As one pass between the rolls does little blending and only a small amount of work, the mills are practically always used as batch mixers. Only a small amount of material is in the high-shear zone at any one time. 

Two-roll mills are used rnainlv for preparing color pastes for the ink, paint, and coating industries. There are a few applications in heaw-diitv blending of rubber stocks, for which corrugated and masticating rolls are often used. 

Polyethylene can be compounded on any of the standard types of mixing equipment used for visco-elastic materials. For laboratory purposes a two-roll mill is suitable operating temperatures varying from about 90°C to about 140°C according to the type of polymer. On the industrial scale, compounding is undertaken either in internal mixers, or more particularly, extrusion compounders. 

Blending of polymer, plasticiser and filler may be carried out using two-roll mills or internal mixers as commonly used in the rubber industry. Alternatively, since the raw polymer is supplied as a free-flowing powder a dry blending process similar to that now widely used with PVC (see Chapter 12) is also used. 

In most of these routes, premixing is carried out in a trough mixer at room temperature to give a damp powdery mass or mush . This may then be fluxed on a two-roll mill, in an internal mixer, or in a continuous compounder such as the Werner and Pfleiderer Plastificator. For many operations the compounded mass... 

By rolling on a two-roll mill the molecular weight of the polymer can be greatly reduced by mechanical scission, analogous to that involved in the mastication of natural rubber, and so mouldable materials may be obtained. However, bulk polymerisation is expensive and the additional milling and grinding processes necessary make this process uneconomic in addition to increasing the risk of contamination. 

The filtered dough is then returned to a mixer and the alcohol content reduced to 25% by kneading under vacuum. Further reduction in the alcohol content is brought about by rolling the compound on a hooded two-roll mill. The milled product is then consolidated on a two-bowl calender and sheeted off in hides about j in thick. At this stage the solvent content is between 12 and 16%. 

Compounding may be carried out by either a wet or a dry process. In the wet process, now obsolescent, the ingredients are mixed as a viscous solution in acetone in a dough mixer. The resulting dough is then rolled on a hot two-roll mill to evaporate the bulk of the solvent. It is then necessary to season the resulting hides until the solvent content is reduced to a tolerably low level. 

Dry processes which obviate solvent difficulties are now preferred and are similar to those employed with the major thermoplastics. They include the use of two-roll mills, internal mixers, extruders and extrusion compounders. The use of dry blend techniques similar to that used more recently with PVC have also been used. ... 

As an alternative to the wet process described above, moulding compositions may be made by mixing a powdered resin or a methylol derivative with other ingredients on a two-roll mill or in an internal mixer. The condensation reaction proceeds during this process and when deemed sufficiently advanced, the composition is sheeted off and disintegrated to the desired particle size. This dry process is not known to be used in any current commercial operation. 

Before fabrication it is necessary to compound the gum with fillers, vulcruiising agent and other special additives on a two-roll mill or in an internal mixer. 

Ebonite compositions may be prepared without difficulty either in an internal mixer or on a two-roll mill. In addition to the rubber and sulphur, fillers are invariably present in commercial mixes. These materials have the important function of diluting the rubber phase. Because of this the exotherm will be... 

In order to be effective in imparting various chosen characteristics, all additives employed in a blend must be homogeneously dispersed throughout the blend. The two most commonly employed pieces of equipment for blending rubber and additives are rubber mills and a special type of mechanical mixer known as the Banbury mixer. A typical rubber mill consists of two rolls which rotate toward each... 

A two-mill take-off system, the mills sized appropriately for the mixer. The two two-roll mill take-off system is made up of one mill beneath the mixer to take out the heat from the compound (the drop mill) and a second mill used for the final blending process. This system is recommended when time and productivity are major issues. 

There are two types of hot feed extruders, one similar to the screw type cold feed extruder, except that the strip feeding the extruder is taken directly off the two-roll mill. The mill is used to further blend and heat the compound. It is then taken off the mill in strip form and fed directly into the extruder. The second type of hot feed extruder is based on the action of a ram being used to feed the compound into the extruder die (Fig. 16). The compound is placed on a two-roll mill to further blend and heat rubber. It is then taken off the mill in pig form to fill the extruder chamber. 

The oldest technology involved in the elastomer blending and vulcanization process is essentially a temperature controlled two roll mill as well as internal mixers followed by an optimum degree of crosslinking in autoclave molds (compression, injection, etc.) in a batch process or in a continuous process such as continuously heated tube or radiated tubes. A few examples of laboratory scale preparation of special purpose elastomeric blends is cited here. 

Elastomer-plastic blends without vulcanization were prepared either in a two roll mill or Banbury mixer. Depending on the nature of plastic and rubber the mixing temperature was changed. Usually the plastic was fed into the two roll mill or an internal mixer after preheating the mixer to a temperature above the melting temperature of the plastic phase. The plastic phase was then added and the required melt viscosity was attained by applying a mechanical shear. The rubber phase was then added and the mixture was then melt mixed for an additional 1 to 3 min when other rubber additives, such as filler, activator, and lubricants or softeners, were added. Mixing was then carried out with controlled shear rate... 

The calendering configuration of rolls may consist of two to at least seven rolls. The number of rolls and their arrangement characterizes them. Examples of the layout of the rolls are the true L , conventional inverted L , reverse fed inverted L , I , Z , and so on. The most popular are the four-roll inverted L and Z rolls. The Z calenders have the advantage of lower heat loss in the film or sheet because of the melts shorter travel and the machines simpler construction. They are simpler to construct because they need less compensation for roll bending. This compensation occurs because there are no more than two rolls in any vertical direction as opposed to three rolls in a four roll inverted L calender and so on. 

The compounds were mixed in three steps The first two steps were done in an internal mixer with a mixing chamber volume of 390 mL. The mixing procedures employed in the first two steps are indicated in Table 29.2. The starting temperamre was 50°C and the cooling water was kept at a constant temperature of 50°C. The rotor speed was 100 rpm and the fill factor 66%. After every mixing step the compound was sheeted out on a 100-mL two-roll mill. The third mixing step was done on the same two-roll mill. The accelerators and sulfur were added during this step. 

The dump temperature of the compound was varied by changing the mixer s rotor speed and fill factor while keeping the other mixing conditions and the mixing time constant. Under the assumption that the final dump temperature is the main parameter influencing the degree of the sUanization reaction, the effect of the presence of ZnO on the dynamic and mechanical properties of the compound was investigated. ZnO was either added on the two-roll mill or in the mixer. 

Mechanical Properties of the Vulcanized Compounds with ZnO Added in the Mixer, Resp. on the Two-Roll Mill at Different Dump Temperatures... 

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