A COMPARISON OF FREE-FLOWING, SEGREGATING AND NON-FREE-FLOWING, COHESIVE MIXING SYSTEMS IN ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF A MODIFIED V-SHAPED SOLIDS MIXER

The performance of a modified V-shaped solids mixer, i.e., uneven leg or offset angle, has been reassessed by using a binary cohesive mixture, made up of 1% sodium salicylate and 99% microcrystalline cellulose, as the mixing system. The performance of the mixer was defined in terms of relative standard deviation from the measured mean. The results generated from the present study were compared with the previously published data generated by using a free-flow mixing system. It appears in the present study that the free-flowing, segregating materials may be;used as a mixing model to predict the trend of the performance of a modified V-shaped blender for the non-free-flowing, cohesive materials. However, in the equilibrium state, the non-free-flowing, cohesive mixture has much better quality of the mix than that of the free-flowing, segregating system in terms of the scale and intensity of segregation.