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130 Enrique Ortega-Rivas

(a) (b)
Feed
Screw
Roll
Product
Screw
Roll
Feed
Product
Figure 33 Equipment used for high-pressure agglomeration: (a) compacting roller press,
(b) briquetting roller press.
shaping, extrusion has been extensively used in grain process engineering to obtain an
array of products from diverse cereals, principally ready-to-eat breakfast cereals.
C. Mixing
The unit operation in which two or more materials are interspersed in space with one
another is one of the oldest and yet one of the least understood of the unit operations
of process engineering. Mixing is used in the food industry with the main objective of
reducing differences in properties such as concentration, color, texture, taste, and so on,
between different parts of a system. Since the components being mixed can exist in any of
the three states of matter, a number of mixing possibilities arise. The mixing cases involving
a uid, for example, liquidliquid and solidliquid, are most frequently encountered, so
they have been extensively studied. Despite the importance of the mixing of particulate
materials in many processing areas, fundamental work of real value for either designers
or users of solids mixing equipment is still relatively sparse. It is through studies in very
specic elds, such as powder technology and multiphase ow, that important advances in
the understanding of mixing of solids and pastes have been made.
Mixing is more difcult to dene and evaluate with powders and particulates than it
is with uids, but some quantitative measures of dry solids mixing may aid in evaluating
mixer performance. In actual practice, however, the proof of a mixer is in the properties
of the mixed material it produces. A signicant proportion of research efforts in the food
industry is directed toward the development of new and novel mixing devices for food
materials. These devices may be effective for many applications since they deliver a mixed
product with the required blending characteristics. Due to the complex properties of food
systems, which can themselves vary during mixing, it is extremely difcult to generalize
or standardize mixing operation for wider applications of mixing devices, either novel or
traditional. Developments in mathematical modeling of food-mixing processes are scarce
and there are no established procedures for process design and scale-up. As a result, it is
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Handling and Processing of Food Powders and Particulates 131
virtually impossible to devise relationships between mixing and quality (Niranjan, 1995),
especially for blending of food powders. With reference to solid foods, Niranjan and de
Alwis (1993) mentioned as characteristic features of food mixing, the fragile and differently
sized nature of food products, as well as the segregating tendency of blended food systems
on discharge. These characteristics, along with some others like cohesiveness and stickiness,
makes food particulate mixing a complicated operation.
1. Mixing Mechanisms
Three mechanisms have been recognized in solids mixing: convection, diffusion, and shear.
In any particular process one or more of these three basic mechanisms may be responsible
for the course of the operation. In convective mixing masses or group of particles transfer
from one location to another, in diffusion mixing individual particles are distributed over
a surface developed within the mixture, whereas in shear mixing groups of particles are
mixed through the formation of slipping planes that develop within the mass of the mixture.
Shear mixing is sometimes considered as part of a convective mechanism. Pure diffusion,
when feasible, is highly effective, producing very intimate mixtures at the level of individual
particles but at an exceedingly slow rate. Pure convection, on the other hand, is much more
rapid but tends to be less effective, leading to a nal mixture that may still exhibit poor
mixing characteristics on a ne scale. These features of diffusion and convective mixing
mechanisms suggest that an effective operation may be achieved by a combination of both,
in order to take advantage of the speed of convection and the effectiveness of diffusion.
Compared with uid mixing, in which diffusion can be normally regarded as being
spontaneous, particulate systems will only mix as a result of mechanical agitation provided
by shaking, tumbling, vibration, or any other mechanical mean. Mechanical agitation will
provide conditions for the particles to change their relative positions either collectively or
individually. The movement of particles during a mixing operation, however, can also result
in another mechanism, which may retard, or even reverse, the mixing process and is known
as segregation. When particles differing in physical properties, particularly size and/or
density are mixed, mixing is accompanied by a tendency to unmix. Thus, in any mixing
operation, mixing and demixing may occur concurrently and the intimacy of the resulting
mix depends on the predominance of the former mechanism over the latter. Apart from the
properties already mentioned, surface properties, ow characteristics, friability, moisture
content, and the tendency to cluster or agglomerate, may also inuence the tendency to
segregate. The closer the ingredients are in size, shape, and density, the easier the mixing
operation and the more the intimacy of the nal mix. Once the mixing and demixing
mechanisms reach a state of equilibrium, the condition of the nal mix is determined and
further mixing will not produce a better result.
A general theory of segregation, regardless of the particular circumstances in which
the operation takes place, has not yet been offered to explain the segregation phenomena in
particulate systems. In any blending operation the mixing and demixing mechanisms will
be acting simultaneously. The participation of each of these two sets of mechanisms will be
dictated by the environment and by the tendency of each component to segregate out of the
system. Since these two mentioned sets of mechanisms will be acting against each other,
an equilibrium level will be obtained as the nal state of the mixture.
2. Degree of Mixing
Over the years many workers have attempted to establish criteria for the completeness and
degree of mixture. In order to accomplish this, very frequent sampling of the mix is usually
required and, tending to be statistical in nature, such an exercise is often of more interest
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132 Enrique Ortega-Rivas
to mathematicians than to process engineers. Thus, in practical mixing applications, an
ideal mixture may be regarded as the one produced at minimum cost and which satises
the product specications at the point of use.
Food mixing is a complicated task not easily described by mathematical modeling.
Mixture quality results from several complex mechanisms operating in parallel, which are
hard to follow and t to a particular model. Dankwertz (1952) has dened the scale and
intensity of segregation as the quantities necessary to characterize a mixture. The scale of
segregation is a description of unmixed components, while the intensity of segregation is
a measure of the standard deviation of composition from the mean, taken over all points
in the mixture. In practice it is difcult to determine these parameters, since they require
concentration data froma large number of points within the system. They provide, however,
a sound theoretical basis for assessing mixture quality. Taking into account the complexity
of components and interactions in food solids mixing, it would be rather difcult to dene
a unique criterion to assess mixture quality. A mixing endpoint or optimum mixing time
can also be considered a very relative denition due to the segregating tendency of food
powder mixing. The degree of uniformity of a mixed product may be measured by analysis
of a number of spot samples. Food powder mixers act on two or more separate materials to
intermingle them. Once a material is randomly distributed through another, mixing may be
considered to be complete. Based on these concepts, the well-known statistical parameters,
mean and standard deviation of component concentration, can be used to characterize the
state of a mixture. If spot samples are taken at random from a mixture and analyzed, the
standard deviation of the analyses s, about the average value of the fraction of a specic
powder x is estimated by the following relation:
s =
_

N
i=1
(x
i
x)
2
N 1
(42)
where x
i
is every measured value of fraction of one powder and N is the number of samples.
The standard deviation value on its own may be meaningless, unless it can be checked
against limiting values of either complete segregation s
0
, or complete randomization s
r
.
The minimum standard deviation attainable with any mixture is s
r
and it represents the best
possible mixture. Furthermore, if a mixture is stochastically ordered, s
r
would equal zero.
Based on these limiting values of standard deviations, Lacey (1954) dened a mixing index
M
1
as follows:
M
1
=
s
2
0
s
2
s
2
0
s
2
r
(43)
The numerator in Equation (43) would be an indicator of how much mixing has
occurred, while the denominator would show how much mixing can occur. In practice,
however, the values of s, even for a very poor mixture, lie much closer to s
r
than to s
0
. Poole
et al. (1964), suggested an alternative mixing index, that is:
M
2
=
s
s
r
(44)
Equation (44) clearly indicates that for efcient mixing or increasing randomization
M
2
would approach unity. The values of s
0
and s can be determined theoretically. These
values would be dependent on the number of components and their size distributions.
Simple expressions canbe derivedfor two-component systems, while for a binarymultisized
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Handling and Processing of Food Powders and Particulates 133
particulate mixture Poole et al. (1964) demonstrated that:
s
2
r
=
pq
_
w/(q(

f
a
w
a
)
p
+p(

f
a
w
a
)
q
)
_ (45)
where p and q are the proportions by weight of components within a total sample weight w
and f
a
is the size fraction of one component of average weight w
a
in a particle size range. For
a given component in a multicomponent and multisized particulate system, Stange (1963)
presented an expression for s
r
, as follows:
s
2
r
=
p
2
w
_
_
1 p
p
_
2
p
_

f
a
w
a
_
p
+q
_

f
a
w
a
_
q
+r
_

f
a
w
a
_
r
+
_
(46)
Equations (43) and (46) can be used to calculate mixing indices dened by
Equation (42). Another suggestion for the characterization of the degree of homogeneity
in mixing of powders, has been reviewed by Boss (1986), with the degree of mixing M
3
dened as:
M
3
= 1
s
s
0
(47)
Some other mixing indices have been reviewed by Fan and Wang (1975).
McCabe et al. (1992), presented the following relationship to evaluate mixing time t
for solids blending:
t =
1
k
ln
1 1/

n
1 1/M
2
(48)
where k is a constant and n is the number of particles in a spot sample. Equation (48) can
be used to calculate the time required for any required degree of mixing, provided k is
known and the segregating forces are not active. Mixing times should not be very long due
to the unavoidable segregation nature of most food solids mixtures. Instead of improving
efciency, long mixing times often result in poor blending characteristics. A graph of the
degree of mixing versus time is recommended to select the proper mixing time quantitat-
ively. Most cases of mixing of powders will attain maximum degree of homogeneity in less
than 15 min when the proper type of machine and working capacity have been chosen.
3. Powder Mixers
In general terms, mixers for dry solids have nothing to do with mixers involving a liquid
phase. According to the mixing mechanisms previously discussed, solids mixers can be clas-
sied into two groups: segregating mixers and nonsegregating mixers. The former operate
mainly by a diffusive mechanism while the latter practically involve a convective mech-
anism. Segregating mixers are normally nonimpeller type units, such as tumbler mixers,
whereas nonsegregating mixers may include screws, blades, and ploughs in their designs,
and examples include horizontal trough mixers and vertical screw mixers. Food powders
can also be mixed by aeration using a uidized bed. The resulting turbulence of passing
air through a bed of particulate material causes material to blend. Mixing times required in
uidized beds are signicantly lower than those required in conventional powder mixers.
Van Deemter (1985) discussed different mixing mechanisms prevailing in uidized beds.
Tumbler mixers operate by tumbling the mass of solids inside a revolving vessel.
These vessels take various forms, such as those illustrated in Figure 34, which may be
tted with bafes or stays to improve their performance. The shells rotate at variable speeds
having values up to 100 r/min with working capacities around 50 to 60% of the total. They
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134 Enrique Ortega-Rivas
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 34 Tumbler mixers used in food powder blending: (a) horizontal cylinder, (b) double cone,
(c) V-cone, (d) Y-cone.
are manufactured using a wide variety of materials, including stainless steel. This type of
equipment is best suited for gentle blending of powders with similar physical characteristics.
Segregation can represent a problem if particles vary, particularly in size and shape.
Horizontal trough mixers consist of a semicylindrical horizontal vessel in which one
or more rotating devices are located. For simple operations single or twin screw conveyors
are appropriate and one passage through such a system may be good enough. For more
demanding duties a ribbon mixer, like the one shown in Figure 35, may be used. A typical
design of a ribbon mixer will consist of two counteracting ribbons mounted on the same
shaft. One moves the solids slowly in one direction while the other moves it quickly in
the opposite direction. There is a resultant movement of solids in one direction, so the
equipment can be used as a continuous mixer. Some other types of ribbon mixers operate
on a batch basis. In these designs troughs may be closed, as to minimize dust hazard, or
may be jacketed to allow temperature control. Due to small clearance between the ribbon
and the trough wall, these kinds of mixers can cause particle damage and may consume
high amounts of power.
In vertical screw mixers a rotating vertical screw is located in a cylindrical or cone-
shaped vessel. The screw may be mounted centrally in the vessel or may rotate or orbit
around the central axis of the vessel near the wall. Such mixers are schematically shown
in Figure 36(a) and 36(b) respectively. The latter arrangement is more effective and stag-
nant layers near the wall are eliminated. Vertical screw mixers are quick, efcient, and
particularly useful for mixing small quantities of additives into large masses of material.
4. Applications
Applications of powder mixing in food systems are diverse and varied and include
blending of grains prior to milling, blending of ours and incorporation of additives to
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Handling and Processing of Food Powders and Particulates 135
Feed
Product
Figure 35 Plain view of an open ribbon mixer.
(a) (b)
Figure 36 Vertical screw mixers: (a) central screw, (b) orbiting screw.
ours, preparation of custard powders and cake mixes, blending of soup mixes, blending of
spice mixes, incorporation of additives in dried products, preparation of baby formula, etc.
D. Cyclonic Separations
Separation techniques are involved in a great number of processing industries and repres-
ent, in many cases, the everyday problem of a practicing engineer. In spite of this, the
topic is normally not covered efciently and sufciently in higher education curricula of
some engineering programs, mainly because its theoretical principles deal with a number
of subjects ranging from physics principles to applied uid mechanics. In recent years, sep-
aration techniques involving solids have been considered in the general interest of powder
and particle technology, as many of these separations involve removal of discrete particles
or droplets from a uid stream.
Separation techniques are dened as those operations, that isolate specic ingredients
of a mixture without a chemical reaction being carried out. Several criteria have been used
to classify or categorize separation techniques. One such criteria consists in grouping them
according to the phases involved, that is, solid with liquid, solid with solid, liquid with
liquid, etc. A classication based on this criterion is shown in Table 18. Dry separation
techniques would, therefore, constitute all those cases in which the particle to be isolated
or segregated from a mixture is not wet, and would include particular examples of the
solid mixtures and gassolid mixture cases listed in Table 18. The most important dry
separation techniques in processing industries have been reviewed by Beddow (1981). In
food processing, there are important applications of dry separation techniques, such as the
removal of particles from dust-laden air in milling operations or the recovery of the dried
product in spray dehydration.