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Lab Scale Twin-Screw Extrusion
Lab scale extruders maximize your research efficiency and ROI
Requiring only a small amount of material to conduct experiments, lab scale size extruders allow you to conduct numerous trials efficiently, cost effectively, all while conserving precious laboratory space.
With a Thermo Scientific lab scale twin-screw extruder, easy upscaling from 11, 16 to 24 mm is ensured by design.
Thermo Scientific Process 16 Extruder
The Process 16 extruder is a modular lab-scale extrusion system with a wide range of options and accessories to exactly meet your processing requirements. Enabling fast and reliable material development for advanced materials, polymer or food.
Twin-screw extrusion (TSE) is the standard for mixing and compounding in polymer processing and has expanded into other applications for new material development. TSE offers a high level of process flexibility, more control of process parameters, and can produce a wider range of products. Being a continuous mixing process where a base matrix and multiple additives are transformed into a new compound, TSE has benefits for multiple products beyond traditional polymer processing such as:
Packaging - Producing bio-based or compostable packaging materials to save natural resources.
Food - Development of meat analogues from plant proteins, alternative proteins, and up-cycling of food-by-products.
Pharmaceuticals - Developing new medications with better drug availability for patients.
Every day products - Increase the utility of multitouch surfaces by adding antibacterial properties.
Finding the right material properties requires testing with multiple parameter sets
Lab scale twin-screw extruders offer simplicity, flexibility, and efficiency for research and development projects.
Achieve processing flexibility: segmented barrel and screw design
Apply different temperature profiles in your process:
The 40 L/D barrel is segmented in 5 L/D steps. Each segment can be individually heated or cooled, giving you an unmatched precision in applying different temperature profiles to your process.
Process small amount of raw materials:
If a process requires a small amount of raw materials or if there is concern that a material may degrade due to a long residence time, a screw length reduction kit is available.
Segmented screw configurations offer a solution for feeding and mixing of challenging materials such as fibers.
Customize segmented screw profile for your exact processing needs
Introduce diverse materials - top and side feeding options
The range of available solid and liquid feeder choices offers almost infinite options to introduce materials with different flow behaviors into the extruder.
Metering solid and liquid materials into the extruder can be achieved via the six barrel ports on the top of the extruder or via one of the side feeding options that are available with the Process 16 and TSE 24 instruments.
For example, with the Process 16, the user can choose to integrate up to 5 feeders (3 top feeders and 2 side feeders) along the fully ported barrel. Different feeder types can help to exactly meter materials e.g. powders, pellets or fibers.
Process 16 extruder
Easily add or remove feeders as needed along the fully ported barrel of the Process 16 extruder
Processing challenging materials
For chemically aggressive materials, steel and coating options for screw and barrel are available. Processing of corrosive, abrasive materials and reactive extrusion is possible.
The Process 11 and Process 16 extruders are available in hygienic versions in which all product-contact-parts are constructed of stainless steel. A hygienic model is recommended when working with aqueous materials such as HMMA (high-moisture meat analogues) and TVP (texturized vegetable protein) materials.
See and optimize your experiment with easy access to the inside of the barrel
Look inside: The horzontal split barrel can be opened for easy cleaning and process inspection on all lab scale size extruder models. Access the inside by either removing the horizontal split barrel top from the Process 11 and Process 16 extruders or simply open the hinged top on the 24 mm instrument.
Easy access to the inside of the barrel when the process is stopped enables the optimization for an extrusion process. The horizontally split barrel has a removeable / hinged top and easily facilitates a deeper process understanding and at the same time makes cleaning easier.
Intuitive feeder control from integrated HMI
Process 16 – HMI touchscreen with displayed feeders
Automatic recognition and feeder control:
The extruder and all connected feeders are controlled via the integrated and clearly structured touchscreen Human Machine Interface (HMI). When a feeder is connected to the extruder it is automatically recognized and depicted as an icon on the touchscreen. All relevant setup and control parameters are accessible from the extruder HMI and no additional control-box is required. Simply click on the feeder icon and go from here.
Minimize downtime between experiments
Process 11 extruder
Process 16 extruder
The compact stainless-steel monocoque housing of the Process 11 and Process 16 extruders enables fast and thorough cleaning to minimize downtime between experiments. It reduces also the number of visible cables and hoses and thus minimizes the risk of damage.
Featured resources
See how flexible a modular, lab scale extruder can be. This video features the Thermo Scientific Process 11 Twin-screw Extruder.
Twin-screw extruder solutions
Lab scale twin-screw extruders offer flexible compounding configurations that can move you from small batches in lab scale production to pilot-scale production.
Simulate production and optimize your process. Feed different additives (solid and liquid) along the various barrel ports. Quickly and easily configure a wide variety of applications and test conditions.
Save time and money developing formulations for polymer and food products with a true benchtop solution that maximizes the usage of available lab space. Transfer scalable process conditions and knowledge obtained in the lab to pilot and production scale processes.
- Use as little as 20 g of material per experiment to optimize your process parameters and formulations
- Fully ported barrel for metering materials along the barrel via top feeding
- Hygienic and Pharma versions available
Highly modular, flexible extrusion system with a wide range of options and accessories to exactly meet your processing requirements. Fast and reliable material development in the polymer, food, or pharma industries.
- Use as little as 0.4 kg of material or go up to 18 kg/h to optimize your process parameters and formulations
- Fully ported barrel for metering materials along the barrel – either top or side feeding
- Hygienic and Pharma versions available
Pilot-scale extruders are an excellent choice for small batch production, when working with specialty formulations, or small quantities of expensive materials and additives.
- Achieve up to 50 kg/h throughput for small scale manufacturing. Optimize your process parameters under real life conditions
- Fully ported barrel for metering materials along the barrel - either top or side feeding
What doesn’t enter the extruder cannot be processed – benefits of high-free volume
Free volume is related to the ratio of the outer and inner screw diameters (do/di). The image below depicts the difference in free volume for a constant screw diameter when (do/di) is changed. The comparatively small change from 1.50 to 1.73 shows a significant reduction in available space between the twin-screws (light grey area) were the material must travel in order to be processed and is important to be able to process low bulk-materials e.g. fibers at lab scale.
To ensure all material enters the extruder in a laboratory and pilot plant environment, Thermo Scientific Twin-Screw Extruders employ a high-free volume approach (do/di = 1.73 with the Process 16 extruder) with appropriate specific torque to generate the necessary throughput.
Change of (do/di) with a fixed screw diameter
Relation of (do/di) torque and free volume. Click to enlarge
Application resources
Polymers
FAQs: Why Smaller is Better in Polymer Recycling
Application Note: Producing High-Performance Polymer-Composites by Embedding Nanoparticles
Smart Note: How to Incorporate Sensitive/Low Bulk Density Fillers in a Polymer Compound
Brochure: Comprehensive compounding and extrusion solutions for materials science
Food
Additive Manufacturing
Cosmetics
