Ultrasonic Devices for Lab and Industrial Use

Hielscher Ultrasonics is your top supplier worldwide for innovative ultrasonic devices from lab homogenizers and bench top mixers to industrial processing reactors. Typical applications include, mixing and homogenizing, disintegration and sonochemistry.

Ultrasonic devices made by Hielscher cover the full range from sample homogenizing in the lab to the ultrasonication of large volumes in industrial production. Whether you need to sonicate 1.5mL in a test tube or 20 tons per hour, Hielscher offers you the perfect solution for it.

Hielscher Ultrasonics specializes in equipment for the ultrasonication of liquids. This includes homogenizing, disintegration, emulsification, dispersing or particle size reduction (milling). Another interesting field of application is sonochemistry, e.g. to enhance the mass-transfer in the production of biodiesel. Discover the potential of ultrasonics for your industry or process.

Alternatively you can browse through our website by selecting a device. Hielscher laboratory devices include handheld homogenizers, like the UP100H (100 watts). Stand-mounted devices, such as the UP400S (400 watts) are typically used for the sonication of larger sample beakers.

The UIP1000hd (1kW) is the perfect industrial ultrasonic device for the development and optimization of new applications. Larger industrial ultrasound devices, such as the UIP10000 (10kW) and UIP16000 (16kW) are installed in production processes throughout the world for the inline sonication of high volume flows, e.g. for industrial mixing processes.

While lab devices are typically used for the sonication of test tubes and sample beakers (batch mode), industrial devices are commonly used in combination with reactor vessels (flow mode). Using the menu top the left, you can browse our website by selecting the volume to be sonicated.

We at Hielscher are glad to assist you. Call us today, or use the form below to describe your processing needs. We will recommend the most suitable ultra sonic device configuration meeting your requirements.

Ultrasonic Applications of Hielscher Devices

Hielscher ultrasonic devices are used in many industries and processes. Below you find an overview about the most typical applications of Hielscher ultrasonic devices.

Ultrasonic Homogenizing

Ultrasonic homogenizing is a mechanical process to reduce small particles in a liquid so that they become uniformly small and evenly distributed. When ultrasonic processors are used as homogenizers, the objective is to reduce small particles and to improve uniformity and stability. These particles (disperse phase) can be either solids or liquids. A reduction in the mean diameter of the particles increases the number of individual particles. This leads to a reduction of the average particle distance and increases the particle surface area. Ultrasonic homogenizing is very efficient for the reduction of soft and hard particles. Hielscher produces ultrasonic devices for the homogenization of any liquid volume for batch or inline processing. Laboratory ultrasonic devices can be used for volumes from 1.5mL to approx. 2L. Ultrasonic industrial devices are used for the process development and production of batches from 0.5 to approx 2000L or flow rates from 0.1L to 20m³ per hour.

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Ultrasonic Dispersing and Deagglomeration

Ultrasonic dispersing and deagglomeration of powder particles generates single-dispersed particles. The dispersing and deagglomeration of solids into liquids is an important application of ultrasonic devices. Ultrasonic cavitation generates high shear forces that break particle agglomerates into single dispersed particles. The mixing of powders into liquids is a common step in the formulation of various products, such as paint, ink, shampoo, beverages, or polishing media.

The individual particles, e.g. nanoparticles are held together by attraction forces of various physical and chemical nature, including van der Waals forces and liquid surface tension. The attraction forces must be overcome on order to deagglomerate and disperse the particles into liquid media. For the dispersing and deagglomeration of powders or nanoparticlese in liquids, high intensity ultrasonication is an interesting alternative to high pressure homogenizers, agitator bead mills, impinging jet mills and rotor-stator-mixers.

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Ultrasonic Emulsifying

Ultrasonics is an effective means for emulsification. A wide range of intermediate and consumer products, such as cosmetics and skin lotions, pharmaceutical ointments, varnishes, paints and lubricants and fuels are based wholly or in part of emulsions. Emulsions are dispersions of two or more immiscible liquids. Highly intensive ultrasound supplies the power needed to disperse a liquid phase (dispersed phase) in small droplets in a second phase (continuous phase). In the dispersing zone, imploding cavitation bubbles cause intensive shock waves in the surrounding liquid and result in the formation of liquid jets of high liquid velocity. At appropriate energy density levels, ultrasonic emulsification can well achieve a mean droplet sizes below 1 micron (micro-emulsion).

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Ultrasonic Disintegration of Cell Structures

ultrasonically assisted extraction of compounds from herbs using an ultrasonic processor UP200S Ultrasonic treatment can disintegrate fibrous, cellulosic material into fine particles and break the walls of the cell structure. This releases more of the intra-cellular material, such as starch or sugar into the liquid. In addition to that the cell wall material is being broken into small debris.

This effect can be used for fermentation, digestion and other conversion processes of organic matter. After milling and grinding, ultrasonication makes more of the intra-cellular material e.g. starch as well as the cell wall debris available to the enzymes that convert starch into sugars. It does also increase the surface area exposed to the enzymes during liquefaction or saccharification. This does typically increase the speed and yield of yeast fermentation and other conversion processes, e.g. to boost the ethanol production from biomass.

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Sonochemical Effects of Ultrasound

Sonochemistry is the application of ultrasound to chemical reactions and processes. The mechanism causing sonochemical effects in liquids is the phenomenon of acoustic cavitation. The sonochemical effects to chemical reactions and processes include increase in reaction speed and/or output, more efficient energy usage, performance improvement of phase transfer catalysts, activation of metals and solids or increase in the reactivity of reagents or catalysts.

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Ultrasonic Transesterification of Oil into Biodiesel

Upgrade your biodiesel plant using Hielscher ultrasonic biodiesel reactors.

Ultrasonication increases the chemical reaction speed and yield of the transesterification of vegetable oils and animal fats into biodiesel. This allows changing the production from batch processing to continuous flow processing and it reduces investment and operational costs. The manufacturing of biodiesel from vegetable oils or animal fats, involves the base-catalyzed transesterification of fatty acids with methanol or ethanol to give the corresponding methyl esters or ethyl esters. Ultrasonication can achieve a biodiesel yield in excess of 99%. Ultrasound reduces the processing time and the separation time significantly.

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