While the total absence of internal paddles or blades on the Lindor horizontally rotating drum mixer has made its agentle touch' approach to blending and mixing a widely applied concept in the food industry, the machine's lower energy consumption compared to others, as highlighted in a recent application, has gained equal recognition.
This typical case study in the UK involved a common low density starch, with a 7000 litre batch having a mean bulk density of 0.5 and weighing 3500kg. Lindor would normally install two 11kW motors to run a blender of size capacity, but in this case just 12kW of installed power sufficed due to the low batch weight and the mixer's special handling capabilities.
A satisfactory batch time from filling through to discharge for the Lindor mixer in this application is 6 min, giving a maximum energy consumption per batch of 1.2kW-hr. Like-for-like mixing duty comparisons conducted between different mixer types showed the level of savings this represents.
A typical 7000 litre batch capacity ribbon-blade, plough-share or paddle mixer would dispose of 60 to 80kW of installed power, so that a 6 min mixing cycle involving the same materials and batch weight in such machines would clearly consume considerably more energy than is required by the Lindor machine.
Apart from this fuel economy, the question arises as to what happens to the extra energy dissipated in the process. Some is used moving a heavier machine and handling greater machine friction, but a proportion of the energy is expended in overcoming friction within the mix.
Undesirable consequences of this are that the product may become mechanically damaged by the shear forces applied and that it will certainly become warmer. Such a temperature increase can result in chemical changes within the product or may encourage dangerous bacteriological growth. A further factor affecting operational flexibility is that the Lindor machine can mix efficiently with a batch filling of as little as seven to 10percent of the maximum, which in the case of the 7000 litre model is 500 litres.
Positive, paddle or plough action mixers on the other hand require a batch filling of 70 per cent of the maximum in order to be able to achieve efficient mixing.
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