---

---

---

---

Science Current Events and Science News RSS Feeds

---

---

Email a Friend Printer Friendly

Production of spherical beads with the JetCutter

November 03, 2003

A major problem in particle production technology is the large scale production of uniform beads from viscous fluids. Producing such beads is of interest in various industrial sectors, e.g. chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry, agriculture, biotechnology.

The JetCutter is a new and simple technology for bead production that meets the requirement of producing equally sized beads with a high production rate. Especially medium and high viscous fluids can be processed. Thus, the JetCutter is on its way to compete with conventional technologies for bead production.

For bead production by JetCutting the fluid is pressed out of a nozzle as a solid jet. Directly underneath the nozzle the jet is cut into cylindrical segments by a rotating cutting tool made of small wires fixed in a holder.

Driven by surface tension the cut segments form spherical droplets while falling down, where they finally can be gathered. The size of the beads can be adjusted within a wide range of between approx. 150 microns up to several millimetres by adjusting the nozzle diameter, the flow rate through the nozzle, the number of cutting wires and the rotation speed of the cutting tool.

Using proper adjustments up to 99 % of the fluid is transformed into uniform beads. As bead generation is not sensitive to viscosity, beads can be made of low, medium and even highly viscous, syrup-like fluids with viscosities up to several Pascal seconds.

A requirement for bead production by JetCutting is that a solid jet is pressed out of the nozzle almost without pulsation. This can be achieved with suitable pumps or pessurised vessels in combination with special solid jet nozzles and a high fluid velocity of up to 15 m/s and more. Due to the solid jet requirement, the bead production rate of the JetCutter is considerably higher than for many other bead production technologies (e.g. 20 kg per hour and nozzle for 1 mm beads made of a fluid with a density of 1 kg/L).

Since spherical beads are intermediates or products in different industrial sectors, e.g. pharmaceutical, chemical and food industry, agriculture, biotechnology, many applications exist for the JetCutter technology. In this connection it is advantageous that the JetCutter is capable to process almost any kind of liquid material covering polymer solutions (e.g. alginate, pectinate, chitosan, cellulose derivatives, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), gelatin, carrageenan), melts (e.g. waxes, polymers, sugars, sugar alcohols) and dispersions (e.g. inorganic sols, emulsions, suspensions even with a high solid content).

In addition, various substances can be encapsulated in such beads, among them food ingredients (e.g. oils, vitamins, amino acids, prebiotics, flavours), ingredients for household products (e.g. fragrances, pigments, dyes), active agents (pharmaceuticals, pesticides), catalysts (enzymes, bacteria, fungi, chemical catalysts) and solid particles (e.g. alumina, silica, titania, zirconia, magnetite).

The JetCutter technology is exclusively commercialised by the company geniaLab (www.geniaLab.com). geniaLab's main business is the toll production of all kinds of beads, process development for customers who wish to use beads as well as selling lab-scale JetCutter equipment for R&D.

Industrie- und Handelskammer