Mixing of Viscous Non-Newtonian Liquids

In many industrial mixing operations, the liquid raw materials, products, and intermediates (or all three of them) are rheologically complex. Numerous examples can be found in the polymer based industries (manufacturing and processing of synthetic rubbers, plastics, fibers, resins, paints, coatings, and adhesives), food-processing industries, bio-chemical operations, and in the manufacturing of detergents, fertilizers, explosives, and propellants. The spectrum of rheological complexities is wide: paints are thixotropic and dispersions may have a yield stress. The most frequently occurring anomalies are, however, a shear-dependent viscosity and viscoelasticity. Both these phenomena are characteristic of fermentation broths and of polymer solutions and melts though, by no means, exclusive to them only.