Impellers help shampoo manufacturer to double capacity
13 Jul 2010
Lymington, UK – Growing demand for its natural-ingredient-derived haircare products has recently led Herb UK Ltd to increase capacity of its Lymington plant. The facility was relying on a two-tonne vessel to manufacture shampoos and cream peroxides.
“Our shampoo was taking three days to mix and is the most challenging product to produce,” said Mark D’Arcy, Herb UK’s operations manager. “Our existing mixing equipment with large blade impellers was also leaving too much air in the product, causing delays at the bottling stage.”
The firm experimented with recirculation pumps but these increased power consumption, and caused product aeration and inconsistent results, instead of improving the agitator.
Herb UK turned to EKATO Mixing Technology, which had the capability to simulate mixing performance using scale models. These capabilities included a three-litre model, which was able to reproduce the process within a 4000-litre vessel.
The most striking aspect of complex mixing operations is the extent to which conditions can change during the course of production, according to EKATO UK managing director John Smith.
“There are large viscosity ranges from minimum shear to intensive dispersion,” explained Smith. “Using a range of tools including CFD, we are able to identify improvements, many of them quick to implement.”
Herb UK opted for Ekato’s Viscoprop agitators, which are designed to reduce cost by combining previously separate process steps in a single vessel. It also offered a variable speed unit – to give operators better control “and minimise splashing with smaller batch sizes – and reverse-direction capability: ’pulling’ liquids off the floor of the vessel and distributing them evenly through the batch.
The technology has enabled Herb UK to reduce process time by 50%, reported factory manager Brian Crouch: “We can achieve 100,000 tonnes per manufacturing year. In addition the new process is removing much of the air, reducing bottling time and the need for a recirculation pump.”
The new impellers are much smaller, added Crouch. “This makes the tank more accessible for removing the product and a shorter cleaning process reduces changeover times when we switch from shampoo to activators.”
The multi-stage units have also helped Herb UK with its process for correcting pH value, as the impellers distribute the adjuster through the entire batch resulting in better consistency from the top to the bottom of the vessel. This was previously done by adding an adjuster at the end of the process but being thinner and lighter, this tended to float on the liquid surface.
Herb UK is now talking to EKATO about optimising Tank Two, D’Arcy explaining: “We achieved what we wanted to do with tank one. The customer support is second to none and is keeping us ahead of the competition who are finally realising that natural products can work in the salon.”
