With the world reopening after a couple of years of lockdown globally, many expect the sports market to explode in 2022. The reason for this is people love sports. Watching sports is one of the few things that kept people sane during the Covid pandemic. Now with the world reopening people expect to return to this passion in droves. Whether they are playing them or watching them, the world loves sports and still uses them as entertainment and exercise. The overall sports industry is experiencing continuous growth rates and shows no sign of slowing down.
It is for this reason corporations in this market will be trying to find methods to reduce costs to make their new innovations more profitable. Not surprisingly due to the plow mixers’ versatility, they are used in the manufacturing process of many pieces of sporting equipment. Plow milling technologies have helped lower the price point of many pieces of sports equipment, enabling them to be more accessible to the common man.
Due to the wide variety of modifications these mixers can have done to them, they have touched sports from golf, bowling, hunting, and even automobile racing. Most of the work with sports equipment manufacturers is on the side of mixing components together, like the dry powder blending used to make ceramic materials for skeets. However, in the golf industry, manufacturers of golf balls have used plow mixers to serve as a vessel to mix and react the components to make liquid cores for some golf balls. The manufacturers of bowling balls also use plow mixers to mix and disperse the resin components, powders, and liquids together to make the plasticizers used to produce bowling balls. Additionally, in the automobile racing industry, many car parts are made using plow mixers in the process of producing them. (See the image below for a list of parts the plow mixers have touched in the auto industry)
Processall’s employees have a long history of working with the sports equipment industry aiding in everything from initial testing to the installation of the unit to maintenance throughout the life cycle of the unit.
Processall’s plow mixing technology gives manufacturers a leg up on the competition. Listed below are some of the benefits of moving toward plow mixing technologies for sports 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 blend.
- 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 together
- 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 pressure 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 – allows 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
Sports whose Equipment that uses plow mixing technology
- Golf
- Bowling
- Racing
- Hunting
- Biking
- Boating
- 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 mixing solutions for your application.