Netzsch LabPilot – grinding and classifying for food labs

An unadulterated jet mill for the laboratory, Netzsch LabPilot, is a flexible grinding and classifying system. Modern labs need to handle various process steps and requirements efficiently as they pay more attention to single tasks and machines.

Grinding and classifying are both significant process stages used in the industrial manufacture of a variety of goods in the food and luxury food industries and also in the chemical industry. This is true not just at the manufacturing scale but also at the laboratory scale used for product development, property research, efficiency improvement, and cost-cutting.

In this vast and demanding field modern laboratories need to deal with multiple process steps and requirements in a productive way. Today lab plants focus more on specific machines and tasks.

The whole process in a nutshell

Since the current lab plants are required to concentrate more on individual tasks and machines, even for a grinding task followed by particle separation, the test product has to be ground first, later collected, and carried to be loaded to the next machine where separation takes place. The whole process includes lots of dust and requires a workforce that can result in product loss or infections.

Moreover, space requirements for a few machines and the explosion risks must be taken care of at several places. During the milling tasks, the fineness of the particle has to be different for different processes, and there is a need to find the optimal size. The finest product requires maximum energy to achieve it. Many processes require a controlled particle size that cannot be met through normal impact milling tech.

A small portion of the fine product has to be separated once powdered to achieve the demand for narrow size distribution. Air classification is required if the range is below 100 µm.

LabPilot sets new bars for flexibility and consumer goodwill

Netzsch has come up with a smart solution – LabPilot. The LabCompact system has been widened for such tasks, and this makeover brought visual changes and other benefits like easy maintenance, consumer friendliness, and easy cleaning. The LabPilot now includes grinding technologies.

After the jet and classifier mills that were already available, the new fine impact mill Condux and bread mill Sphero can also be used. It widens the possibilities for grinding to have more areas of application.

The newly launched Condux 60, a fine impact mill, can process a wide range of products up to Mohs hardness of 3 to 3.5. This mill has multiple grinding tools like a wing beater, blast rotor, and pin discs to perform varied tasks. This mill is a solution for initial utility studies and small quantity production.

Sphero 1, a dry agitator bead mill, is known to achieve high fineness with high productivity and low energy consumption. The basic function is to finely break up raw materials with a product count of d50 in the range of 2 to 70 µm. Sphero 1 can be used in a single pass and as a classifying and grinding circuit.