Eliminating air bubbles and cleanup, while speeding up processing is key for the advancement of silicones.
With its powerful dual asymmetric centrifugal mixing, FlackTek™ rapidly homogenizes mixes while incorporating fillers and additives. The FlackTek™’s vacuum mixing capabilities eliminate air bubbles and voids, ensuring consistent curing and reliable silicone products.
Benefits Include:
Efficient Mixing of Silicone Materials: FlackTek™ technology provides rapid and thorough mixing of silicone formulations, essential for high-quality end products.
Elimination of Air Bubbles: Ensures bubble-free mixtures, which is critical for the performance and appearance of silicone products.
Temperature Control Capabilities: Advanced models offer precise temperature regulation to protect heat-sensitive silicones and additives during mixing.
Non-Contaminating Process: Disposable mixing containers prevent cross-contamination, maintaining the purity of silicone formulations.
Versatile Batch Sizes: Accommodates various batch volumes, suitable for both small-scale prototyping and large-scale manufacturing.
Homogeneous Dispersion of Fillers and Additives: Achieves uniform distribution of pigments, catalysts, and reinforcing agents, enhancing product properties.
We Can Help You Process:
Silicone Elastomers (e.g., RTV, LSR)
Silicone Gels
Silicone Adhesives and Sealants
Silicone Encapsulants and Potting Compounds
Silicone Foam Systems
Heat-Resistant Silicones
Medical-Grade Silicones
Silicone Oil Emulsions
Pigmented Silicone Compounds
Silicone-Based Thermal Interface Materials
Common Challenges and Solutions
The Challenge: The silicone industry often faces challenges in achieving a high degree of homogeneity in silicone mixing processes due to inconsistencies from hand mixing, or bladed mixing. The varying viscosities and properties of silicone materials can make it difficult to uniformly disperse additives, fillers, and components. Inconsistent mixing can lead to product variations and performance failures.
The Solution: FlackTek™ addresses the challenge of achieving homogeneous mixing by utilizing advanced bladeless mixing equipment and a dual asymmetric centrifuge. This innovative and non-invasive approach ensures rapid and thorough homogenization of silicone mixes. FlackTek™'s technology efficiently disperses additives, fillers, and components, resulting in a highly consistent and uniform mixture. This enhances product quality and performance in the silicone industry.
The Challenge: The presence of air bubbles and voids in silicone mixes can lead to several issues such as inconsistent curing, compromised product integrity, and decreased performance. Traditional mixing methods often struggle to effectively eliminate air bubbles and voids, resulting in suboptimal silicone products.
The Solution: To eliminate air bubbles and voids, FlackTek™ naturally degasses as it mixes, but also provides an option to incorporate vacuum mixing capabilities into its mixing. The vacuum feature effectively removes trapped air, ensuring a more reliable curing process and consistent quality of silicone products. By eliminating the presence of air bubbles and voids, FlackTek™ helps to produce high-quality, bubble-free silicone mixes.
The Challenge: Silicone mixing is often time-consuming and inefficient. Traditional methods can be labor-intensive, requiring extensive manual effort and lengthy mixing times, both of which lead to varying results. This inefficiency hampers production throughput and overall manufacturing quality and productivity.
The Solution: FlackTek™'s innovative bladeless mixing technology significantly reduces mixing time, but the reliability is just as much a time-saver as the actual speed the machine operates at. This time efficiency optimizes production processes and improves overall manufacturing productivity for silicone materials, can help speed up testing and R&D, and no-cleanup-required means you can move from one batch to the next in record time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does FlackTek™ provide anything to improve the transfer process for silicone and difficult-to-transfer materials?
Products like the SpeedDispenser™ and SpeedDisk™, are specifically designed to streamline materials transfer. The SpeedDispenser™ allows direct mixing and dispensing, eliminating the need for separate equipment and minimizing material handling steps. The SpeedDisk™ enables efficient transfer from a cup to a syringe with minimal material loss, ideal for silicone and other challenging-to-transfer materials.
Is cleanup required after using FlackTek™ products for silicone mixing?
FlackTek™ products are designed to minimize cleanup efforts. The recommended mixing vessel is a cup with lid, which after use can be thrown away. With the SpeedDispenser™, you can mix directly in the dispensing unit, reducing the need for additional containers and minimizing cleanup. The SpeedDisk™ enables efficient transfer with minimal material loss, reducing the need for extensive cleanup procedures.
Do I have to remove bubbles and voids from silicone after mixing?
No – FlackTek™ addresses the issue of air bubbles and voids during the natural process of FlackTek-ing. Additionally, the optional vacuum mixing capabilities facilitate the absolute removal of air bubbles and voids. This results in a reliable curing process, ensuring consistent and high-quality silicone products.