Tips on Homogenizing Delicate Samples

Avoiding sample damage by heat or mechanical action can be of concern to laboratory scientists researching solutions to disease prevention or developing new or improved medical treatments.     Tissue homogenization, cell disruption, and emulsifying are but three of many applications where laboratory homogenizers may be called into play.  Accessories such as a flow-through chamber also may…

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Using a Flow-Through Chamber for Sports Drink Processing

Coupling a laboratory homogenizer drive motor to a flow-through chamber attachment is an excellent way to mix ingredients such as food supplements and energy drinks.  Today’s flow through chambers can process high volumes and serve either as a pilot plant for food processing or for production line homogenizing and blending. The popularity of energy drinks…

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How to Use Lab Homogenizers

As with all precision scientific equipment, laboratory homogenizers have advantages and limitations.  Many of the questions we get at CAT Scientific come down to the improper use of lab homogenizers or misconceptions of what they do and what they should not be expected to do.  For that matter, we could have titled this post “How…

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When to use Sealed and Non-Sealed Homogenizer Shafts

Laboratory homogenizer shaft assemblies have a number of components, all designed to work together to accomplish homogenizing, emulsifying, mixing, cell disruption, and similar processing.   The work performed governs the selection of the homogenizer generator, specifically choosing the correct rotor-stator configuration.  This includes the size (diameter) and the length of the shaft assembly. For certain homogenizing…

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A Guide to Lab Stirrers and Lab Mixers

Laboratory mixing equipment – lab mixers, lab stirrers and lab homogenizers (sometimes known as high shear mixers) – are important research tools.   Which to use depends on several factors including but not limited to sample size, sample viscosity, the purpose of the mixing or stirring action and whether or not heating the sample is desired. …

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How to Shop for an Overhead Stirrer

R100C Overhead Laboratory Stirrer

Stirring is a common activity in research labs as scientists work to refine processing procedures.  Two of the most common techniques are magnetic stirring with or without a hotplate, and overhead stirrers. Benchtop overhead stirrers are not equipped with hotplates. But unlike magnetic stirrers they are able to process larger volume samples and samples with…

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Selecting Overhead Stirrer Impellers

How to Select Overhead Stirrer Impellers You’ve settled on a laboratory overhead stirrer to handle mixing and stirring operations in your facility.  You’ve matched stirring speed and power along with other over head stirrer features that will help you develop pilot processes that can be scaled to commercial production.  This is half the job.  To…

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Using a Lab Homogenizer in Animal Cell Research

Animal tissue culture techniques can require careful handling of the sample to ensure the cells won’t be damaged or die before animal cell research proceeds.  Processing animal fibers to secure cells is a critical first step in the process.  A laboratory homogenizer is an excellent tool to accomplish this but care must be taken to…

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Mini Overhead Stirrer R20

Use a Mini Overhead Stirrer for Small Batch Processing Stirring is a common procedure employed when developing new products for commercial introduction.  Substantial efficiencies can result when researchers use small batch processing to develop mixing criteria that later scale to commercial production.   This can be especially true when costly ingredients are involved.  A mini overhead…

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Selecting an Overhead Stirrer

How to Specify an Overhead Stirrer If your laboratory or research organization is planning the purchase of an overhead stirrer there are a number of specification issues that should be addressed in writing up a purchase order.  First of all, you’ve reached the conclusion that an overhead laboratory stirrer is required due to sample volumes…

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