Currently, the world is observing a shortage in building materials. Lumber prices alone have skyrocketed over 130% over last year and steel prices have increased upwards of 8% in several months. Additionally, people are wanting to not only build their own custom homes others at the same time are continuing to want to renovate their properties to improve their home’s equity. During the last quarter of 2020, Home Depot saw sales increase by about 25% over 2019. It is for these reasons there is a high demand and current shortage of building materials. Companies are therefore looking for methods to improve productivity to gain a competitive advantage during this shortage and many companies are willing to invest in new technologies to improve their plant’s efficiencies.
Plow mixers have been a part of building equipment manufacturing for some time. They have been involved with everything from epoxies manufacturing to PVC manufacturing to carpet and tile manufacturing. Horizontal mixers have helped all these industries because they can be modified to fit customer applications. Processall’s plow mixers can speed up the high viscosity mixing operations needed to make materials like epoxies, caulking, and linoleum flooring adhesives. They also can disperse powders into liquids to make plasticizers for everything from PVC plumbing to carpet backing. Additionally, Processall’s plow mixer can dry mix the powders needed to make ceramic tiles faster and more uniform than other mixers on the market. They also offer the added benefit of spray nozzles in the system to add adhesives or other liquid binders to powders to make the material better stick together before going into the kiln. Additionally, plow mixers are used in the painting and colorant arena of building supplies to aid in everything from drying pigments to serving as reaction vessels for making metal stearates to standard material mixing.
Processall’s employees have a long history of working with the building equipment industry aiding in everything from initial testing to installation of the unit to maintenance throughout the life cycle of the unit.
Processall’s Plow Mixing technology gives manufacturers in the building arena a leg up on the competition. Listed below are some of the benefits of moving toward plow mixing technologies for building industry applications.
- The fluidized bed created by the mix creates greater uniformity in the mixes
- Customers can potentially observe upward of a 600% increase in production by moving to a plow mixer from a ribbon blender.
- Even with the high horsepower, Processall was able to verify a reduced energy consumption at a constant production rate vs a ribbon blender
- Being thermally insulated the unit did not cause any temperature spikes in mixing the material
- Ease of cleaning to be able to transition from one blend to another
- Reduced Safety concerns over other mixing technologies
- Able to be manufactured to become a U1 pressure vessel for reactions
- Able to react materials together in a fluidized bed speeding up the rate of reaction for materials
- The vessel jacket allows different media (hot oil, steam, or tempered water) to be used depending upon the thermal sensitivity of the product
- Ability to adjust between high and low pressure depending on the steps in the process
- High-speed mix that is gentle enough to mix material as fine as dried oats without damaging the material
- Easy to scale up and predict mix, reaction, and drying times after lab testing
- Ability to remove water or organic solvents from material
- Vessels can be further outfitted to increase versatility:
- Mechanical seals – will allow the vessel to be pressurized as well as reach a low vacuum (28 Hg)
- Liquid lances – will enable media to be sprayed onto the substrate
- Ability to perform the reaction, mixing, and drying within one unit resulting in:
- Faster throughputs
- Reduced energy consumption
- Smaller footprint on the production floor
Home Building Areas currently using plow mixing technology
- Tiles
- Paints
- PVC Pipe
- Caulking
- Epoxies
- Linoleum Flooring Adhesives
- Paints
- And many more
Processall maintains a fully equipped testing facility in Cincinnati, Ohio designed to provide customers with the data they need to develop their process, evaluate equipment, scale up, and identify the necessary equipment to maintain desired production volumes. We extend an open invitation to all potential customers to bring their products to our test center and get a “hands-on” experience with our technology and capabilities.
We also maintain a rental fleet that customers can utilize to do further testing at their facility or employ to minimize their startup costs for a new process.
Please feel free to contact us with all your material processing questions and our experienced industry professionals will help you find the right industrial mixing equipment solutions for your particular application.