Color Paste Production Process: Bead Mill

Color paste is a semi-finished product mainly composed of dispersants, pigment that disperses in the filler. Oil-based color pastes use oil as an adhesive, while resin-based pastes use resin. Water-based color pastes add a surfactant to water as a filler. As a component of paint for coloring, the types of pastes are important for forming various paints. A small amount of surfactants such as zinc cyclohexane is often added during manufacture to make the pigments disperse better in the color paste.

The traditional way to color paint is to add pigment powder directly to the mixture. Here are the disadvantages. Without professional technology and processes, pigment particles are relatively coarse, resulting in poor and uneven coloring of paints. If such coarse pigment particles are added, the paint will become weak in light and weather resistance after film formation, so the coloring is prone to fading.

Industrial production processes are developing rapidly because of the high market demand, and the requirements for color paste are no longer simply adding pigments to the filler (solvent or water). In particular, the requirements for some high-end coatings or paint manufacturers are higher. Most color paste manufacturers use bead mills to grind solid pigment particles to the micron, or even nano, which improves performance, such as coloring.

The bead mill adopts the disc or pin as the rotor structure in the design of the closed inner vessel with the grinding element fixed on the agitating shaft, which overcomes the shortcomings of unevenly distributed grinding media during grinding and avoids poor particle size distribution.

The slurry enters the grinding chamber through the feeding pump. The inlet is attached to the flange connecting the drive device. The slurry flow direction is opposite the bottom end of the mechanical seal, which greatly reduces the pressure on the mechanical seal and prolongs its service life. During the high-speed rotation of the eccentric disc mounted on the agitating shaft, the mixture with the slurry and grinding media undergoes efficient relative motion. As a result, solid particles in the slurry are effectively dispersed, sheared, and crushed. The final product is obtained after separation through the dynamic gap. 

We, the LONGLY Group, are one of the Chinese manufacturers and suppliers specializing in equipment and integrated systems for wet grinding and dispersing, as well as intelligent solutions. Our products cover high-end laboratory bead mills, bead mills for mass production, and complete sets of equipment in grinding production lines, integrating R&D, production, sales, design, and construction. Apart from China, there are 7 global sales centers (including technical support), from Germany, America, Pakistan, Japan, India, Indonesia, and South Korea. Our experience with successful cases in providing the full range of equipment has made LONGLY a brand with high direct designation rates in China.