VACUCAM® Slurry Processes for Gums, Thickeners, Stabilizers, and other functionalizing ingredients are designed for single pass mixing directly into the top of a mix tank. The VACUCAM® Mixer on Stand (MOS) skidded unit provides a versatile unit to accommodate single or multiple mix tanks at a range of elevations. For rapidly functional high viscosity ingredients, the MOS process delivering the finished slurry directly into an agitated tank is the most effective. For lower viscosity pumpable finished slurries, the in-line VACUCAM® EJM 2000 skidded unit offers a versatile process to accommodate high capacity and/or frequent batch processes serving one or many use points.

Typically the ingredient weighments are small and can be pre-weighed into a Bag Dump Hopper. If the process utilizes larger volumes of dry ingredients, the process can include the use of a PH Bulk Bag Surge Hopper with loss-in-weight controls.

The VACUCAM® Process routinely reduces the usages of these materials by 15-30% or more. Conventional mechanical devices and high shear mixing equipment, though considered by most to be required for handling these materials, are actually harmful and wasteful. The key to the functionalization of these materials without agglomerates (aka “fisheyes”) lies in the ability of our process to deliver controlled Dynamic Dispersion of each dry particle into the atomized fog of liquid particles at the perfect ratio. Other processes will create the agglomerates and use high shear in an attempt to get rid of them. In the case of hydrocolloidal thickeners, this will actually destroy a portion of the material that did become functional, requiring additional material to achieve the same result. Moreover, agglommerated material will get lost in plant equipment (tanks, plate heat exchangers, strainers, etc.) and never make it into the finished product. This is why we can (and do) routinely provide our customers with a Process Performance guarantee that we will reduce usage, reduce time and improve quality. 

For more information, download our Thickeners/Stabilizers whitepaper for thickeners.