Whitepapers

Abstract

The goal of this white paper is to give an overview of the mixing technologies that are available to support the fast-growing, highly competitive, and rapidly changing cannabis and CBD industries, as well as to highlight new equipment designs that are increasingly being recognized as potential solutions to current mixing challenges. Due to the sheer number and variety of mixing applications within the broad spectrum of mass-produced cannabis oils, tinctures, creams, edibles, food products, and personal care goods to discuss in detail, this paper will focus on a few general classifications and some examples within each mixing category.

Introduction

Regulatory and operational standards in the cannabis/CBD space continue to evolve towards traditional pharmaceutical and supplement standards, ensuring end products are safe, pure, and effective. Preemptively exploring and deploying options for mixing technology will ease transitions as manufacturing and processing regulations become more structured or federally regulated. Mixing equipment employed in the production of cannabis/CBD and cannabis/CBD-infused products deal with a higher level of complexity because their use is more specialized.

Mixing fulfills many objectives beyond simple combination of raw ingredients. These include preparing fine emulsions, reducing particle size, carrying out chemical reactions, manipulating rheology, dissolving components, facilitating heat transfer, etc. So even within a single cannabis or cannabis-infused product line, it is not uncommon to employ several different types of mixers to process raw ingredients, handle intermediates and prepare the finished product.

Furthermore, the majority of cannabis/CBD related products are heavily reliant on the manufacturing process. The mixing procedure, in addition to the extraction step, has a significant impact on whether the end product will achieve the correct dosage, bioavailability, appearance, flavor, texture and stability or shelf-life. The importance of proper mixer selection and optimal operation can hardly be over-estimated.