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To manufacture high-purity chemical and isotopic products, EaglePicher Technologies engineered a new process in which five bulk products are transferred, weighed with a high degree of accuracy, and conveyed to a mixing system.

The EaglePicher engineers knew the batch recipe and end result but were not biased toward any particular conveying technology or equipment design. After discussions with several different equipment vendors and a bidding process, EaglePicher ultimately chose a one-of-akind design from Flexicon Corporation that combined flexible screw conveyors and a weigh batching center to meet exacting measurement requirements at the beginning of the process, with vacuum pneumatic conveying downstream to transfer 100 percent of the weighed ingredients to final blending.

EaglePicher's proprietary process involves mixing five dried products, four received in bulk bags and one in 50-lb (23-kg) bags, plus water. The ingredients are fine powders, relatively freeflowing, dry, and dusty. Humidity in the system must be controlled to avoid absorption of room moisture by the dry feed.

Two of the ingredients go directly to a wet blender, and the other three ingredients are routed first to a dry blender for mixing and then on to the wet blender. Ingredient weights for the batch recipe vary from a minimum of less than 20 lb (9kg) to a maximum of nearly 400 lb (181kg) in each batch, and the process demands accuracies within +/- 1.00% of target over this broad range of ingredient weights, as well as for the water.