What kind of process is the extruder in the production process? Now let's take everyone to decrypt the content of this aspect.

Mixing, melting, kneading and an extruder are like a meat mixer: the kneaded material is fed into the machine, heated to a greater or lesser degree, then evenly mixed, extruded through the die hole, and then cut by the cutter (granular). Two high-torque screws transfer the energy required for kneading to the material. Therefore, the extruder is sometimes called a "screw mixer".

For simple applications, such as the processing only contains one or two steps, a single screw extruder can be used for molding, cooking and melting operations. For complex production applications, including three or more stages, such as mixing, homogenization, diffusion, and additive or pigment blending processes, co-rotating twin-screw extruders are required.

For example, if you add the prepared auxiliary materials at one end of the extruder, you may get shaped noodles, snack foods, and breakfast cereals at the other end. Changing the supplementary formula will result in a shaped pet food for cats and dogs. If the temperature and shearing force are increased (after the ingredients are sheared and separated, and then the ingredients are allowed to remix), fish feed can be produced or the storage life of high-nutrient products, such as rice bran, can be increased. Buhler extruders have even been used to pellet reed grass to make flower pots. For PET chips recovered from plastic bottles, the Buhler extruder applies downstream solid-phase polycondensation.

If you have never thought about using an extruder, then you can learn about the various processing capabilities of this "spiral mixer" through the experimental equipment installed in the Buhler Technology Center. In fact, there are no restrictions on the possible application areas. Under reasonable requirements, you can use a fully equipped engineering laboratory to turn your ideas into reality through innovative and successful production techniques. In other words, you will get the support and advice of our process experts. The machinery and equipment are operated and demonstrated by experienced engineers.

The latest extrusion application

Composite materials: fully processed plastics containing all ingredients can be further processed into final products. For example, if you mix glass fiber and plastic, you can produce a high-tech material, the so-called reinforced fiber thermoplastic composite material. This type of extruder is also known as a "compounding machine" in the plastics industry.

Thermoplastic: This kind of plastic can be thermoformed and used as an engineering material.

Masterbatch: How to make various plastics or foam materials contain a certain color, you can use yellow masterbatch to make yellow plastic, blue masterbatch to make blue plastic, and so on. To be more precise: Masterbatch is a plastic concentrate, which contains formulated pigments and other ingredients.

Such as: additives, lubricants, flame retardants, crosslinking agents or foaming agents. Add this color masterbatch during processing to make finished products in colorless plastic raw materials as coloring and protective ingredients.

Powder coating: Insoluble powder coating, used for spraying on metal surface, and then cured in a heating furnace to form a finished surface.

Pigment: very small particles with a size of about 50 nanometers, which are added to paints, coatings or printing toners to create colors. Inorganic pigments are usually made from natural raw materials; organic pigments are synthesized by chemical methods.

Special chemical engineering: Production and sales in this industry: additives, enhancers, colorants, chemicals for the electronics industry, fragrances, pesticides, odor substances and other similar products. Through these products, the specialty chemical industry changes the life cycle, color or firmness of materials used in daily life.

Engineering plastics: modified plastics can be used as engineering materials, such as reinforced glass fiber plastics.

Rubber compound: Rubber compound is used to make hoses, door and window sealing strips, shoe soles or tires. The particular challenge here is the high mixing quality and at the same time high compactness.