+31 314 373 333Printer toner in its early form was simply carbon powder. Then, to improve the quality, the carbon was melt-mixed with a polymer. Toner has traditionally been made by compounding the ingredients followed by breaking, milling, a classifying step and a post blending step. This process results in toner granules with varying sizes and aspherical shapes.
More recently, chemically produced toners (CPT) have been developed that pose different processing requirements. Hosokawa Micron's Nauta vacuum dryer and the Cyclomix are two of our powder processing solutions that correspond perfectly with these changes.
Nauta® vacuum dryer
The Nauta vacuum dryer is able to dry large batches of Chemically Produced Toner to the desired moisture level. Because of the high level of vacuum the product can be dried at low temperatures, avoiding the product to melt or agglomerate in the dryer. Due to the design and our experience, we can build the dryers up to 22 m³ in cantilevered execution. This means that no additional uncontrolled heat is being developed by a support of the screw since the drive design is strong and the screw does not need to be supported.
Cyclomix high-shear impact mixer
The post blending can be done efficiently in the Cyclomix, mixing the dried, cohesive toner with the flow adding agent and a charge control agent. These additives coat the base toner particles as the high shear forces in the Cyclomix rolls the toner particles around the mixer and through the additives. The Cyclomix is equipped with a cooling jacket on the vessel and on the cover to avoid the material heating up during mixing. It also has a special seal design to avoid small particles melting in the seal area. This results in particles with equal flow and conductivity behavior in the printer.
