Caleva Multi Lab - Remarkable R&D Mix, Granulate, Extrude & Spheronize

The short answer is yes.

We at Caleva have been making pellets and extrudates for over 50 years. If you share with us details of what you are trying to achieve then we would be in a good position to share our experience and guide you to the right equipment for you. This should enable you to be confident that the equipment that you buy is appropriate for your project. This support and advice should be used before purchase decisions are made.

Development and production equipment is normally a significant purchase that should be suitable for what you want to do for several years into the future. It is important that the right decisions are taken before the equipment purchases are decided. For many purchasers, the technology that they are investing into is relatively new and may not be well known. In these cases, the time to obtain advice is before the purchase decisions are made.

Yes, although it depends on your formulation properties.

The CML is designed to work with very small amounts of material (10g - 50g depending on your formulation) to keep the amount of product waste to a minimum.

There are 2 different sized bowls used for mixing on the CML, one full-sized and one half sized.

The smaller bowl has a batch size of about 10 to 20 grams (wet weight) and using smaller blades provides more power to be applied to a smaller mixing surface. Mixing bowls can be used with or without inserts as required.

In the case of very scarce or expensive materials a small bowl will help to run trials with smaller amounts of material. Using 15 grams of material in the smaller mixing bowl will provide a sample that is still large enough to effectively use in the extruder and spheronizer.

Watch a video of the CML mixing small batches of material 

If your experimental work might benefit from being either heated or cooled in the CML granulator mixing bowl during the experimental process, an optional water jacketed bowl can be supplied with your CML. The water jacketed bowl is suitable for heating or cooling can be offered with both the full size and the reduced size bowls. A separate water bath and circulation pump will be necessary.

Caleva can also provide a heating and cooling water circulatory system if required.

For working with very “high viscosity“ materials an advanced sigma blade has been designed. This allows a more viscous type of material to be effectively mixed or granulated in the CML system.

• The Sigma blade and bowl system

The Sigma configuration is designed for use if your material is highly viscous and difficult to work with and where there is a greater focus on mixing than generating a high shear.

The Sigma blades also contra-rotate from each other, however, the blades do not overlap.

Yes, the CML Extrusion attachment can come with a variety of dies that can be used to control pellet size.

The determination of the pellet size is mostly due to the diameter of the extrusion hole in the extruder die. As a general rule, the pellet will approximately have the same diameter as the die holes. This can vary a little, but this is the factor that has the greatest influence on pellet size.

Caleva can offer CML dies with hole diameters from 0.5 mm to 3.0 mm in 0.1 mm increments.

We offer dies that produce extrudate of different density. The effectiveness of these dies is dependent on the properties of your specific formulation. The basic equipment is supplied with one “standard” and one “high density” die. This way you can explore the benefits of variable density, without extra cost. (More die options are available)

The CML also comes with 2 different extruder screws, as standard, to compliment the different dies and materials you may be working with. You can choose which screw works most effectively with your formulation.

Contact us for additional advice on whether this could be beneficial to you.

We can manufacture and supply a range of specialist “non- circular” die hole designs including dies with trilobe and quadrilobe hole shapes. These can be various designs and configurations according to your requirements.

If you are working with catalysts or products for gas adsorption then having die plates designed to increase the surface area of your extrudate is often a must have

Increase the surface area to volume ratio (SA/V) of material produced using different die designs by around 30%.

Contact us for a discussion if you have specific requirements.

We can offer a wide range of different spheronizer disc patterns.

If you need to know more detail about exactly what kind of discs we can offer, please contact us for details of the cross
hatch and radial patterns that are available.

If at some point in the future there is the possibility that you may wish to work with materials that are known to be sticky then applying to the spheronizer disc and the interior of the drum a coating of PTFE is a possible option. Let us know if this is of interest to you and we can arrange it for you.