5L/10L Laboratory Vacuum Emulsifying Mixer — Price, Specifications & Buying Guide

VEM-5 / VEM-10 specifications at a glance

What is a laboratory vacuum emulsifying mixer?

A laboratory vacuum emulsifying mixer is a small, sealed, jacketed vessel that disperses one liquid phase into another under vacuum and high shear. It is the machine R&D teams use to turn a formula on paper into a repeatable, bubble-free cream, gel, ointment or paste — and to prove that the formula still works when it is made in a 500 L production pot.

Two things separate it from an ordinary lab stirrer. First, shear: a bottom-mounted stator–rotor homogenizer tears the dispersed phase into fine droplets instead of merely folding it around. Second, vacuum: the sealed pot is evacuated while mixing, so the air beaten in by the rotor is pulled out before it sets into the finished product. Add a Teflon scraper agitator that sweeps the vessel wall, and viscous products that would normally sit and scorch against a hot jacket are constantly renewed at the heat-exchange surface.

The result is a batch that is homogeneous, de-aerated and — most importantly for scale-up — produced by the same mechanism as your future production machine.

How it works: the six-step working process

Materials are charged into the water-phase and oil-phase pre-mix pots, heated and mixed there, then drawn into the emulsifying pot by vacuum. Inside the sealed pot, the central stirrer with Teflon scrapers sweeps product off the wall so that the material wiped away constantly becomes a new interface. The product is then cut, compressed and folded by the blades until it reaches the homogenizer, where the high-speed shear wheel and the fixed cutting case shear it in the stator–rotor gap. Because the pot stays under vacuum throughout, the bubbles produced during mixing are taken away in time.

Why the scraper matters more than you think

In a jacketed vessel, the product film touching the wall is the first to overheat. Without scraping, that film thickens, browns or gels, and your 3 L trial batch no longer represents what a 500 L batch will taste, smell or feel like. The Teflon scrapers run at 10–120 rpm and rotate vertically along the inner wall, continuously exposing fresh material to the jacket while pushing product back into the homogenizer's intake.

Design details that decide whether a batch is repeatable

On the MAXWELL VEM-5/VEM-10 the pot cover is an automatic lifting type, and material from the water and oil pots enters the emulsifying pot directly under vacuum through the conveying pipeline — no bucket transfer, no air pickup. Heating is done by an electric heating tube warming the heat-conducting medium in the pot jacket, with the temperature freely settable and automatically controlled; cooling is equally simple, by feeding coolant into the same jacket, and an insulation layer sits outside the jacket to stabilise the batch and protect the operator.

• Homogenizer and agitator run separately or together — you can pre-mix gently, then shear, or do both at once.

• VFD speed control on the wall-scraping mixer, so the same machine handles a thin lotion and a stiff paste.

• Discharge two ways: tilt the emulsifying pot, or open the bottom valve — the bottom route is what you want for high-viscosity product.

• Product contact parts in SUS304, or SUS316L for medical/pharmaceutical work, with mirror-polished inner surfaces built to GMP hygiene practice.

• Control by console buttons or PLC touch screen, setting vacuum, temperature, frequency and time.

• Handles difficult solids: the high-speed homogenizer rapidly dissolves poorly soluble surfactants such as AES, AESA and LSA in liquid detergent production, saving energy and cycle time.

Technical data — VEM-5 and VEM-10

Full VEM range: 5 L to 1000 L

The laboratory unit is the first step of a continuous family — see the full vacuum emulsifying mixer range. Every model from 5 L to 1000 L uses the same architecture — jacketed vessel, Teflon scraper agitator, bottom high-shear homogenizer, vacuum system and optional oil/water pre-mix pots — which is why a formula validated on a VEM-10 can be transferred to a production machine without redesigning the process.

5 L vs 10 L vs 30 L: which size should you buy?

The most common buying mistake is ordering the vessel size instead of the batch size. A 10 L emulsifying pot has a 12 L design volume, but homogenizing needs headroom: fill it to the brim and the rotor cavitates, the vacuum line floods and the batch never reaches target droplet size. In practice the sweet spot is roughly 30–80 % of the nominal capacity.

If you are equipping a lab from scratch, our guide to the best lab equipment for small-batch production covers what to buy alongside the mixer.

Rule of thumb: if you only need to prove a formula and send samples, take the VEM-5. If you need data you can hand to a production plant — and stability samples for three months — take the VEM-10. If you plan to sell what you make, start at 30 L.

Lab-class benchmark

When you compare datasheets, look at four numbers only: homogenizer speed and power, scraper speed range, vacuum level and max jacket temperature. Everything else is convenience. For reference, comparable benchtop research units on the market (for example the Berbica BVM-5/10) publish 0–12,000 rpm homogenizing, 0–180 rpm scraper, −0.07 MPa vacuum and heating to 200 °C in a 220 V desktop package of roughly 60–80 kg — useful as a sanity check when a quotation looks too good or too expensive.

Price: what USD 4,300 buys you

The MAXWELL VEM-5/VEM-10 is quoted at USD 4,300 for the main emulsifying pot, with the oil and water pre-mix pots at USD 500 as an optional extra. That places it in the entry-to-mid band for a true vacuum homogenizing system — below pilot-plant machines, and above the simple benchtop homogenizers that have no vessel, no vacuum and no jacket.

What is included: the emulsifying pot with scraper agitator, bottom homogenizer and vacuum system, control panel, and export packing (wooden case or stretch wrap). Not included unless agreed: chiller, air compressor, installation and commissioning, freight and duties. Ask for the quotation to state Incoterms explicitly.

Applications

Vacuum emulsifying mixers are used wherever two immiscible phases must become a stable, glossy, bubble-free product. Typical applications by industry:

From lab bench to 1000 L: how to scale without re-formulating

Scaling an emulsion is mostly a shear-and-time problem, not a volume problem — we go deeper in how to scale up from lab to production. When you move from a VEM-10 to a VEM-500, keep three things as constant as you can:

1. Tip speed of the homogenizer — the peripheral speed of the rotor, not the rpm, is what sets droplet size.

2. Shear time — once the droplet size plateau is reached, extra minutes only heat the product.

3. Temperature profile and vacuum level — especially the cooling ramp, which fixes the crystal structure of waxes and butters.

Expect to adjust two things: mixing time (larger vessels need longer for bulk turnover) and heating/cooling rates (surface-area-to-volume ratio drops as you scale). Run one intermediate step — 30 L or 50 L — before committing to a 500 L or 1000 L machine; it costs a fraction of a failed production batch.

Buying checklist before you request a quote

• Target batch size (not vessel size) and batches per day

• Product viscosity range in cP/mPa·s at processing temperature

• Formulation pH and chloride content → decides SUS304 vs SUS316L

• Heating medium available (electric / steam) and cooling water temperature

• Site voltage and frequency

• Whether you need pre-mix pots (+ USD 500) or will pre-mix elsewhere

• Documentation required (CE, material certificates, IQ/OQ support, manuals language)

• Spare parts kit — scraper blades and mechanical seals are the wear items

Frequently asked questions