MARIS: PRODUCTS

WHY NEEDING A MARIS TM20 LABORATORY EXTRUDER

The number of trials at Maris has been constantly growing in the last years. Such trials are generally carried out in cooperation with our customers and Maris technicians and researchers of the different compounding sectors, namely technopolymers, reactive extrusion, Hot-Melt, etc.

Maris have faced both the chemists’ necessity to study the formulation aspects (feasibility with small quantities of raw materials and speed in the changeover of the machine configuration) and the needs of the process technologists, who are interested in drawing indications on the influence of the process parameters on the morphological and phisico-chemical characteristics of the studied compounds.

In both cases, it is of utmost importance to monitor the process parameters in order to elaborate both the energy balance and a first, eventhough approximate, estimate of the scale up.

In order to meet with both the above described requirements and in the consideration of the most competitive models of Company organization, which tend to draw up the laboratory-project and the production, Maris propose their own laboratory equipment. This is the synthesis of 40-years experience in twin-screw co-rotating extruders production and it has been designed and manufactured for research activity, featuring at the same time the quality, operational and performance characteristics typical of production equipments. The results acheived on the TM 20 LAB can be scaled-up to larger extruder production rates.

TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MARIS TM20LAB EXTRUDER

One of the main constructive aspects of the TM20LAB is the flexibility in as much as the machine must allow fast changes of configuration of the process parts as a function of the characteristics of the raw materials introduced and of the type of process.

This can be easily done by means of interchangeable and modular mechanical components (barrels and screws) without requiring the presence of specialized maintenance technicians.

Its noiselessness makes it suitable for environments other than the industrial ones, in fact this machine has been designed and manufactured for laboratory purposes.

The barrels are both heated and cooled down separately, in order to enable the operator to stabilize the required temperature and therefore to build the necessary thermal profile. In the standard version the barrels are heated by means of electrical resistances. The cooling is operated by a closed loop circuit starting from a main distributor, connected to the heat exchanger group, and delivering the water separately to each single barrel.

The construction materials of barrels and screws can be chosen among a wide range of nitrited, anti wearing and anti corrosion steel.

The electrical cabinet, including the main motor drive, ancillary motors drives with relevant protections, electrovalves and transformers, is located underneath the extruder, inside the supporting frame of the equipment; thanks to this practical solution the TM20LAB has a very compact design.

The operator panel is mounted on a movable arm fixed on top of the equipment main frame, and is therefore very easy to access and operate.

- run/stop push button with signalling lamps for heating cycle, extruder motor, side

The Maris TM20LAB co-rotating twinscrew extruder is suitable to perform the same processes which can de realized on the industrial extruder. The only limitation in this case is given by the size of the raw material to be feeded not to exceed the flight depth dimension of 3,5 mm.:

The scale-up from a machine of these dimensions to an industrial one is not immediate but can be approximately assessed by considering some important parameters both on the construction and the process side.