Overhead Stirrer, Magnetic Hotplate Stirrer, or Both?

Depending on your specific application, you may discover that it is necessary to process active ingredient, extracts, or concentrates that are highly viscous. Viscosity poses obvious challenges when it comes to the blending, stirring, and mixing of disparate substances.

Start With a Magnetic Hotplate Stirrer

So what specific equipment will you need to process these substances? At the least, you will need a magnetic hotplate stirrer, which can raise the temperature of your compounds in a precise, well controlled manner, while also allowing for some preliminary stirring. As noted above, excessively high temperatures can alter the chemistry and/or physical characteristics of your compounds of interest

Therefore, the ability to precisely control temperature is crucial. Raising the temperature too high could damage or unfavorably alter some of your compounds, while increasing the temperature by too little could result in excessive viscosity, which could hinder the thorough blending you’ll need to achieve.

Magnetic hotplate stirrers excel at bringing your liquids to a predetermined temperature — without exceeding that temperature — and maintaining that temperature for a specified length of time. A magnetic stir bar at the bottom of a beaker or flask might struggle to properly mix these substances, however. In instances such as these, you will need to enlist the aid of a more sophisticated, robust stirring technology.

Continue Processing with an Overhead Stirrer

Without thorough mixing, you risk producing products featuring varying concentrations of active ingredients. Consumers deserve and expect consistency and uniformity. The only way to achieve it is to ensure utterly thorough mixing of all constituents. This is crucial for success in the marketplace.

That’s why you also need to invest in a quality overhead stirrer. These precision engineered devices are capable of processing highly viscous, more challenging liquids, with great efficiency. Unlike a magnetic stir bar, they will not struggle to operate properly. Rather, these devices excel at reducing particle sizes, the better to achieve uniform particle size distributions throughout a given batch of product.

It is this particle size reduction that allows the device to generate superior, thorough mixing of all constituents. Thus, serious manufacturers must invest in both a magnetic hotplate stirrer and an appropriate overhead stirrer in order to produce a reliable, consistent product featuring stated concentrations of active ingredients in every single unit.

If you have questions or want to learn more about these devices, call us or send a message.