By Resodyn Acoustic Mixers, Inc.
the high viscosity mixer that easily processes viscous pastes Other Mixers Can't Resonant Acoustic Mixing (RAM) easily mixes highly viscous materials at speeds and uniformity that no conventional bladed mixer compares to. Using sound energy, RAM's bladeless high viscosity mixers deliver wetting, incorporation, and widespread mixing rapidly and uniformly throughout the material matrix. RAM mixers accelerate these processes by inducing Faraday Instabilities, or invasive “fingers” coupled with enveloping “cavities” at the boundary between materials of different densities. RAM delivers highly homogeneous, higher viscosity results significantly faster than traditional technologies. Traditional, blade and axis technologies can work through early stages of wetting and possibly incorporation, but often overheat or grind to a halt when mixing starts and the viscosity increases. Every highly viscous mixing process requires wetting, incorporation, and mixing phases. Without the mechanical limitations of axis/blade methods that require all materials to pass through a limited mixing zone, RAM technology performs all three steps simultaneously and consistently throughout the mixing vessel, reducing processing time by orders of magnitude. RAM technology is a “non-contact” mixing method requiring no blades, propellers, or other engineered devices to cause mixing. This also means that the high shear traditionally associated with viscous materials is eliminated, allowing delicate or hazardous materials to be processed rapidly without excessive heat build-up or physical shear stress. RAM is low shear mixing that protects your sensitive and expensive materials from damage. The more viscous a material, the more difficult it is to mix traditionally. This means that consistent dispersion and distribution suffer at higher centipoise. These restrictive phenomena are completely avoided using RAM mixers at any scale. Sound energy wets, incorporates, and mixes materials rapidly, thoroughly and at levels of quality not previously possible. Over years of test data across numerous industrial installations, RAM devices have delivered exceptional results, well into the tens of millions of centipoise. Every RAM device’s mixing parameter variables can be enhanced by combinations of vacuum, mixing payload temperature control, and other accessories. Viscous materials often mix more effectively at higher temperatures and under vacuum. RAM systems provide these functions before, during, and after actual mixing operations. This means that idle, degassing time, and failed batches due to the wrong temperature are eliminated. RAM’s high-viscosity mixing technology uses sound energy and Faraday Instabilities to drive intense liquid-to-particle interaction during the wetting stage, rapidly distributing liquid throughout the material for efficient, uniform mixing. As viscosity increases, RAM continues to deliver powerful mixing without the limitations of traditional bladed systems. With no impellers or blades—and without the heat and shear associated with mechanical mixing—RAM can efficiently process highly viscous materials at high solids concentrations and dense viscosities. - Vertical vessel movement of 60 x/second and 0.55” / 14 mm displacement, at up to 100 g of acceleration generates intense particle motion. - RAM’s primary viscous mixing mechanism is intense liquid and solids material boundary interaction, and highly effective sound energy facilitating and accelerating mixing. - The addition of processing vacuum or temperature improves many viscous ingredient mixes and aids in degassing. Stop Excessive Heat and Shear - Traditional high viscosity mixers require all ingredients to traverse the entire vessel to repeatedly enter and exit a small, mechanically driven mixing area to achieve proper mixedness. - Viscous materials experience high temperature generation and physical shear, damaging many ingredients. RAM technology activates all ingredients throughout the vessel immediately, eliminating material motion without mixing. RAM mixes everywhere in the vessel without mechanical devices or accessories, reducing temperature generation and eliminating physical shear. Bringing Quality to High cP Processing - High quality viscous performance requires thorough distribution of solids in the liquid matrix, for consistent processing characteristics at any place in the final product. - RAM’s intense and pervasive processing facilitates solid particle separation and dispersion, improving dispersion, consistency, and performance. The performance advantage of RAM for high viscosity mixing can be summarized simply: - Processing time: 1–5 minutes vs. 30–180 minutes with conventional mixing - Blend uniformity: RSD <1% routinely achieved - Scale-up: Direct from lab to production, zero reformulation - Equipment: One unit replaces three (mixer, mill, sieve) - Material integrity: No shear damage, no heat generation, no contamination High viscosity mixing has always been a compromise — between processing time and uniformity, between mixing efficiency and material integrity, between lab-scale results and production-scale reality. Those compromises exist because conventional mixing technology is fundamentally limited in what it can achieve with resistant materials. ResonantAcoustic® Mixing eliminates those compromises. By replacing mechanical agitation with acoustic energy, RAM achieves what no blade or paddle can: simultaneous whole-batch mixing that is fast, uniform, gentle, and directly scalable — regardless of viscosity. For any operation where high viscosity processing is a bottleneck, a quality problem, or a development constraint, RAM is not an incremental improvement. It is a replacement for the entire conventional approach.
