Particle de-agglomeration with an in-line rotor-stator mixer at different solids loadings and viscosities

It was found that the breakup kinetics were not significantly affected by the solids loading, within the range covered in this study. On the other hand, when the viscosity of the continuous phase was increased, the de-agglomeration became slower even though the solids concentration was low (1%wt) and the flow through the rotor-stator was still turbulent. This indicates that it is the flow conditions around the particle and not the bulk rheology of the dispersion that determines the kinetics of the de-agglomeration process. Breakup mechanism was found to be erosion and the dispersion fineness was determined by the size of aggregates.