The MTR can process from 10g to 25 g of your material, depending on the formulation, meaning barely any material is wasted in experiments. The machine will very quickly tell you the ideal amount of liquid to add. The user may have a start point in mind but this may result in a formulation that is too wet or too dry. The iterations may be repeated, but this can be wasteful in terms of materials and time.
One big challenge in formulation development is finding the balance between the material being wet enough to extrude but not too wet to spheronize. In most cases, there is an optimum amount of wetness that will work best for both processes.
The MTR will allow you to estimate or measure what that area might be and to narrow it down and save you a lot of additional work (time and money and product) which are the primary, initial goals.
Some formulations are very "forgiving", and liquid can be varied a lot, but some have to exactly right for extrusion and spheronization to work. The only way to find this out (without the MTR) is with numerous trials, in a systematic trial and error process. Example Put in 50% (ratio) binder, then 40% etc.... Run a single trial (which could take 30 mins) to narrow in upon the optimum liquid point and you can find out if your process (for your materials) will be reasonably easy or whether it will have to be exact.
The MTR will help you to optimize mixing time. The most important effect of mixing time and how it will affect the resulting formulation is often misunderstood and overlooked. See a case study about the importance of mixing time here. (opens in new window).
The MTR will allow you to look at an optimum mixing level and demonstrate what happens if you under or over mix.
The MTR cuts the time required, the number of repetitions of an experiment and reduces the amount of material you need to use. If your materials are expensive and/or difficult to obtain then this instrument is ideal for your development. Read more about saving time and cost in your formulation development.
The MTR is ideal for use as a quality control measurement (consistency) for production lines. It has been proven in some cases to save or stop potential losses of thousands of dollars, even as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single manufacturing schedule for a single week. Read more about the use of the MTR in quality control for production.
The Mixer Torque Rheometer does 3 basic things.
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