Sonomechanics Blog

Many of us face the challenge of noisy work environment. In our previous blog post we talked about the noise produced by ultrasonic processors, which, if precautions are not taken, can be loud enough (up to 109 dBA) to cause significant discomfort and even lead to hearing loss. The details can be found at: How Loud is Your Ultrasonic Processor?

In most cases, a 20 - 25 dBA reduction in the ultrasonic equipment noise is sufficient for compliance with the U.S. and European occupational noise level regulations for an 8-hour work shift [1].  An additional reduction by approximately 5 - 10 dBA would bring the noise down to a background level for most industrial work environments. An ideal ultrasonic equipment noise reduction method would, therefore, attenuate sound levels by about 30 - 35 dBA across the audible frequency range.

The effect of operating an ultrasonic liquid processor (sonicator) on hearing is a question that arises often during discussions with our customers. The noise made by sonicators can be described as intense "hissing", which, if precautions are not taken, can be loud enough to cause significant discomfort or even lead to hearing loss. We performed a series of noise level measurements to determine how loud different types of ultrasonic processors really are.

Oil-in-water emulsions with nano-sized droplets (nanoemulsions) are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, for example, as an intravenous source of fatty acids when oral nutrition is disadvantageous or as bioactive compound carriers (e.g. drugs, vaccines). Pharmaceutical nanoemulsions can be administered by almost all available routes including parenteral, ocular, nasal, oral, topical, and even aerosolization to the lungs. There are currently over a dozen commercially available drugs encapsulated into nanoemulsions. Small oil droplet sizes and the associated stability of these products are critically important. 

Combustion equipment (e.g., diesel engines, power boilers) emits significant amounts of hazardous gasses, such as Nitrous Oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as particulate matter (PM) and black smoke. Due to the widespread use of this equipment, the resulting damage to human health and the environment is tremendous. Adding 5 – 25% of water to the base fuel, such as diesel or kerosene, in the form of a very fine emulsion (nanoemulsion) significantly reduces these harmful emissions.

Are you able to make stable emulsions in the lab, but have trouble replicating the same result in the production environment? Scaling up an emulsification process is frequently even more challenging than succeeding at its lab optimization. In most cases, the post-scale-up loss of product stability is caused by the inability of industrial liquid processors to provide the same intensity of shear forces as was implemented during the research phase, which is why choosing the right production-scale equipment is fundamental.

Do you need to make a product that comprises a homogeneous mixture of oil and water? Is stability of this product a major concern? If so, you are not alone. One of the biggest challenges faced by product developers and process engineers in a wide variety of industries is achieving long-term  stability of products based on combinations of oil and water.

The year of 2014 was busy and successful, and we are delighted to let you know of some of our achievements: