Custom Designed High Intensity Fluxing and Non-Fluxing Type Mixers
Not every mixing job is a simple slurry. Some formulas need heat so polymers soften, wet out, and flux into a uniform mass. Others must stay cooler so solvents, pigments, or heat-sensitive resins are not damaged. Kady International designs high-intensity mixers for both cases.
Kady is known for high-speed rotor-stator mills used in coatings, inks, adhesives, chemicals, and other fluid/solid work. Those mills can also be engineered as custom fluxing or non-fluxing systems. The head, vessel, drive, and temperature controls are matched to the process instead of forcing the process onto a stock machine.
What Fluxing and Non-Fluxing Mixers Do
Fluxing mixers apply high mechanical energy and controlled heat so solids plasticize or dissolve into the vehicle. Typical work includes rubber solutions, polymer melts, resin systems, and other batches that must pass through a viscous, almost dough-like stage before they become a stable mix.
Non-fluxing mixers apply high shear, impact, and circulation without relying on a melt stage. They wet powders, break agglomerates, emulsify, and homogenize while temperature stays in a tighter band. Paints, inks, adhesives, oil dispersions, and high-solids slurries often fall in this group.
The difference is not only heat. It is how energy is put into the batch, how material is kept moving when viscosity spikes, and how the vessel is built so the product can be heated, cooled, sealed, or run continuously.
How Kady High-Intensity Mixing Supports Both Types
A Kady mill pumps material through slotted rotor openings and drives it into a closely fitted stator at tip speeds up to 9,000 feet per minute. That action creates concentrated impact, attrition, and circulation. Auxiliary propellers above and below the head keep heavy or sticky material moving into the working zone.
For fluxing work, that energy helps break large pieces, expose fresh polymer surface, and finish the wet-out after heat has softened the mass. Jacketed vessels, temperature readout, and variable-speed drives let operators raise or hold temperature without losing control of shear.
For non-fluxing work, the same head can wet and disperse solids quickly so the batch does not sit long enough to overheat. Short, high-energy residence time is useful when solvent loss, color shift, or polymer degradation is a concern.
Where Custom Design Matters
Kady does not treat fluxing and non-fluxing jobs as catalog add-ons. Engineers size the mill around volume, viscosity, solids loading, target particle size, and heat load. Common custom choices include:
- Top-entry or bottom-entry heads, chosen by tank layout and whether heavy solids tend to settle
- Batch mills from lab scale to large production tanks, or continuous-flow mills from a few to hundreds of gallons per minute
- Jacketed vessels for heating and cooling
- Vacuum or pressure capability for degassing, sealed solvent systems, or special atmospheres
- Sweep arms for high-viscosity batches that would otherwise leave dead zones
- Interchangeable rotor-stator heads and materials of construction, including stainless and wear-resistant options
- Variable-frequency drives so tip speed can change as the batch thickens or thins
Bottom-entry designs are often useful when dense solids drop out of the mix. Top-entry units fit many existing tanks. Continuous-flow mills suit plants that want a steady stream rather than a long batch cycle.
Typical Applications
- Rubber and elastomer solutions that start as chunks and must flux or dissolve into solvent
- Polymer and resin systems that need heat to wet out, then high shear to finish
- Adhesives, sealants, and contact cements
- Coatings, inks, and liquid colors that must disperse without a melt stage
- Oil-based additives, emulsions, and high-solids slurries
- Specialty chemical batches that need cooking, aeration, deaeration, premilling, or chopping in the same vessel family
Kady also lists related custom work on the same applications page: vacuum systems, gasification plates for injecting gas into liquid, and continuous milling where a line can run without a separate premix tank.
Why High Intensity Changes Cycle Time
Conventional low-speed mixers often struggle when a fluxing batch turns tacky or when a non-fluxing batch is loaded with solids. Material sits on the wall. Heat builds for hours. Extra choppers or media mills get added to finish the job.
High-intensity rotor-stator action shortens that path. Many Kady processes reach a usable dispersion in one vessel and, in some formulas, in a single pass. The company has long claimed cycle-time cuts of up to 90 percent versus traditional blade mixers, along with premilling that can reduce later media-mill passes. Exact results still depend on the formula, which is why Kady offers lab and in-plant testing.
From Lab Trial to Production Machine
Lab mills such as the Model L and LT2000 top-entry units and the Model LB bottom-entry unit are used to prove a fluxing or non-fluxing method on small batches. Geometry and tip-speed approach stay consistent as the job moves to production models. That reduces scale-up risk when heat, viscosity, and particle size all have to stay in spec.
Refurbished mills can also be custom-modified to the same process needs and shipped with a new-machine warranty when a plant wants a faster or lower-cost path to equipment.
Ask Kady to Design the Mixer Around the Mix
If the batch must flux under heat, or if it must stay non-fluxing and tightly temperature-controlled, the mixer should be built for that duty. Send the materials, the target spec, and the vessel or line constraints. Kady can test, recommend head geometry, and engineer a high-intensity system that fits the plant.
Kady International 30 Parkway Drive Scarborough, ME 04074 Phone: 207.883.4141 Email:
Custom designed high-intensity fluxing and non-fluxing mixers are not a separate product line so much as a way of applying the Kady rotor-stator mill: one head, one vessel family, and engineering that follows the formula.
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