Industrial mixers

High-shear mixer (rotor/stator)

Disperses, emulsifies, homogenises and de-agglomerates — and wets powder into liquid without lumps. Vessel built routinely between approx. 100 and 3,000 L; larger systems are sized to order, in AISI 304 or 316L stainless.

Usual configurable range: approx. 100 – 3,000 L
Usual installed power: approx. 2.2 – 37 kW

Also known as: rotor stator mixer · high shear homogeniser · disperser · inline high shear mixer

approx. 100 – 3,000 Lrotor/stator, AISI 316L

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Individually sized on your material and your process. Technical proposal and price normally within 48 hours. Delivery across the EU and the Republic of Moldova.

How it works

An ordinary agitator moves the liquid; a high-shear mixer tears it. The difference is the working element: a rotor turning at high speed inside a perforated stator, with a gap measured in tenths of a millimetre. Material drawn into that gap experiences shear several orders of magnitude above what a paddle in a vessel produces, and agglomerates, droplets and fibres are broken mechanically.

That is where the four uses come from. In emulsions, the dispersed phase is broken into droplets small enough that the emulsion does not separate before its shelf life ends. In dispersions, powder agglomerates open up and the pigment develops its true colour. In powder-into-liquid wetting, the powder is drawn into the vortex and wetted particle by particle, without the lumps you get from pouring powder onto a liquid surface. In de-agglomeration, lumps formed in storage are opened without milling the product.

The vessel is built with a heating and cooling jacket, with a separate slow agitator for bulk circulation and, on request, as a closed design for vacuum or pressure operation. AISI 316L construction with polished surfaces and CIP/SIP is chosen for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.

Rotor/stator

Tenths of a millimetre of gap at high speed — shear comes from geometry, not from spinning a paddle faster.

Four processes in one vessel

Dispersion, emulsification, homogenising and de-agglomeration, plus wetting powder into liquid.

Thermal jacket

Heating and cooling through the batch — many emulsions are made hot and break if cooled too quickly.

Hygienic execution

AISI 316L, polished surfaces, optional CIP/SIP for pharma and cosmetics.

High-shear mixer — cutaway view showing the mixing element

Internal construction

What happens inside

Cutaway view: the centrally mounted rotor/stator with the circulation path of the batch — material is drawn into the shear head and pushed back along the wall.

When to choose it

The concrete situations in which this machine is the right answer — and the one in which we would point you to something else in our range.

You make an emulsion that has to survive until its expiry date: the droplet size of the dispersed phase decides stability, and droplet size comes from shear, not from mixing time.

You wet powder into liquid and get lumps: the powder has to be wetted particle by particle inside the shear head, not poured onto the liquid surface.

A pigment or an additive is not developing its effect: most often it is not dissolved but only partly dispersed, with agglomerates still intact.

The product cakes in storage and has to be brought back to consistency without being milled.

When this is NOT the right machine

If you are mixing dry powders together, high shear gains you nothing — on the contrary, it breaks granules and heats the batch.

See Ribbon blender

High-shear mixer — installed at the customer's plant — The machine installed, with its control panel alongside.

Specifications

The ranges we build routinely. Final dimensions and installed power follow from the density and viscosity of the product, the batch size and the process conditions.

Technical specifications — High-shear mixer
Configurable vessel volume	approx. 100 – 3,000 L; larger systems to order
Product contact material	AISI 304 / 316L stainless
Mixing system	Rotor/stator, with a separate slow agitator for circulation
Installed power	approx. 2.2 – 37 kW; larger configurations to order
Operating regime	Atmospheric, closed vessel, or under vacuum/pressure — as designed
Jacket	Heating and cooling
Rotor speed	Typically 1,500 – 3,000 rpm, adjustable from a frequency inverter
Surface finish	Standard industrial execution; the sanitary version is polished to Ra ≤ 0.8 μm
Options	CIP/SIP · vacuum · recipe control · instrumentation and PLC

The figures above are the ranges we build routinely, not construction limits. We design and manufacture any capacity, power rating and envelope to order — including below or above the ranges in the table.

Build variants

What actually changes between them — not just what they are called.

In-tank shear head

Rotor/stator mounted directly in the vessel, bottom-entry or side-entry. The usual build for full batches.

With an inline homogeniser

The shear head sits on a recirculation loop outside the vessel. The batch passes through it several times, which gives a more uniform result and lets you stop shearing without stopping mixing.

With slow agitator and wall scraper

The slow agitator continuously feeds material into the shear head, and the scraper lifts the layer off the wall. Necessary for viscous products, which otherwise do not circulate on their own.

Vacuum execution

Closed vessel, for products in which entrained air stays in the finished goods — creams, gels, pastes.

Where it is used

The industries we build this machine for — each with its own execution requirements.

Mixing technology

High-viscosity and wet processing

Frequently asked questions

Question not answered here? Write to us — an engineer replies, not a bot.

What does high shear actually mean?

Not high speed, but a very small gap between rotor and stator. Material passing through that gap experiences a velocity gradient several orders of magnitude above what a paddle in a vessel produces. That is why a rotor/stator at moderate speed breaks agglomerates that a paddle at twice the speed merely carries around the vessel.

Will my emulsion hold, or will it separate?

The stability of an emulsion is governed mainly by the droplet size of the dispersed phase and by the emulsifier used. The machine answers for the first part. Tell us the formulation, the viscosities of the two phases and how long the product has to hold, and we will size the shear head and the cycle time on them.

Can it work under vacuum?

Yes, in the closed-vessel version. It is chosen when air entrained during mixing would stay in the finished product — in creams and gels, air bubbles are visible and affect both appearance and stability.

How does it differ from the vacuum homogeniser emulsifier?

The high-shear mixer is the shear machine, and it can also run at atmospheric pressure. The vacuum homogeniser emulsifier is a complete system in which vacuum, a scraper agitator, the shear head, the jacket and recipe control work together for cosmetic and pharmaceutical processes — with smaller vessels and stricter hygiene requirements.

Do you build it in AISI 316L with CIP?

Yes. AISI 316L is chosen when the product or the cleaning agent brings chlorides or acids, and CIP when you change product often and dismantling for every recipe would stop the line for too long. Both are settled at design stage, because spray nozzle positions depend on the internal geometry.