A mixer having i) a vessel defining a mixing chamber surrounded by boundary walls for receiving a mixture containing lumps therein, ii) a plurality of mixing blades, and iii) a driving mechanism supporting the mixing blades in the mixing chamber for mixing motion relative to the vessel so as to mix the mixture within the mixing chamber of the vessel, further includes at least one lump conditioning blade. The lump conditioning blade is supported by the driving mechanism such that the lump conditioning blade is movable in a working direction along a respective one of the boundary walls with a working edge of the blade being maintained at a prescribed space from the boundary wall which is effective to reduce a lump size of the lumps in the mixture as the mixture passes between the working edge of the lump conditioning blade and the boundary wall.

A dry stirrer configured to stir powder in a dry state, and a wet stirrer provided downward of the dry stirrer in the vertical direction and configured to stir the powder are used. In the wet stirrer, the powder is stirred together with a fluid component, so that granules are formed. The wet stirrer includes a stirring chamber having a cylindrical shape and having a central axis placed in the lateral direction, a cut blade configured to rotate around the central axis of the cylindrical shape in the stirring chamber, and an agitating blade configured to rotate along an inner wall that is a cylindrical side face inside the stirring chamber. When the agitating blade passes above the central axis of the stirring chamber in the vertical direction, the agitating blade is rocked.

Improved methods and apparatus (10, 74) for the solubilization of initially solid humic acids include a large-volume mixing/agitation tank (12, 76) for water and solid humic acids, together a recirculation assembly (14, 78) for continuously recirculating the water/humic acids mixture while reducing the size of the humic acids. Properly used, the apparatus (10, 74) is capable of providing relatively stable, solubilized humic acid solutions or dispersions.

A tank on a firefighting aircraft initially is loaded with water. A polymer gel emulsion vessel is provided on the aircraft, but is not activated and mixed with tank water until such polymer gel preparation is initiated by an operator. When initiated, a pump pulls water from the tank and doses it with gel emulsion. Double elbows and/or the pump impeller fully activates the polymer gel. The activated polymer gel is mixed within the tank by one of a variety of systems including mixing paddles or sparging with gas. In one embodiment, a hollow tower of telescoping form has a float to keep an upper end near a surface in the tank and a sparging gas entry is a controlled distance below the surface, such that gas of limited pressure, such as from a ram air inlet can sparge and mix the water and activated polymer gel emulsion effectively.

A system and method are disclosed for mixing a suspension. The suspension may optionally have a low liquid viscosity. The suspension may, optionally, include a metallurgy solvent extraction (SX) mixture. The system and method may be at an industrial scale. In some embodiments, suspension may be stirred at high energy dissipation rate with a large impeller. The system may optionally include baffles. The impellor and/or the baffles may optionally include a rounded edge. The method may be applied to retrofitting a SX plant. The input feed to a mixing reactor may include an emulsion and/or multiple discrete phases.

Improved methods and apparatus (10, 74) for the solubilization of initially solid humic acids include a large-volume mixing/agitation tank (12, 76) for water and solid humic acids, together a recirculation assembly (14, 78) for continuously recirculating the water/humic acids mixture while reducing the size of the humic acids. Properly used, the apparatus (10, 74) is capable of providing relatively stable, solubilized humic acid solutions or dispersions.

An apparatus for treating organic mass. The apparatus comprises a treatment chamber and agitation means provided in the chamber to agitate the organic mass. The agitation means comprises a rotatable shaft extending through the chamber, a plurality of agitator arms extending from the shaft, and a paddle connected to each agitator arm. The paddle is arranged to make a first angle with respect to the longitudinal axis of the agitator arm and a second angle with respect to the longitudinal axis of the shaft. There is also provided a system for recycling ammonia generated from the treated organic mass by the apparatus.

Fermenter for producing a shear-thinning medium comprising a tank volume and a stirring arrangement having an improved distribution capacity or a more uniform shear stress.

Stirrer (1) for stirring molten glass (16), whereby the stirrer (1) comprisesa shaft (2) having a tip (4) and having a central longitudinal axis (L), andone or more inner stirrer blades (5,6) which are attached to the shaft (2), andone or more outer stirrer blades (7,8) which are attached to the shaft (2), whereby the inner stirrer blades (5,6) are attached closer to the shaft (2) than the outer stirrer blades (7,8), whereby, when considering the stirrer in a cylindrical coordinate system (11), both the one or more inner stirrer blades (5,6) as well as the one or more outer stirrer blades (7,8) are disposed at an angle (?, ?) to the central longitudinal axis (L), whereby said angle (?, ?) is between 0? and 90? not including these values, and are disposed having a least a blade section with a normal vector (N, P, Q, R), on the side directed towards the tip (4), with an angular component (N.sub.A, P.sub.A, Q.sub.A, R.sub.A).

The present invention is based in part on the discovery of significant improvements to cell culture systems and methods of generating organoids. The system of the invention provides a novel spinning bioreactor platform for higher-throughput 3D culturing of stem cells (e.g. human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) or embryonic stem cells (ESCs)). The system can be widely used as a standard platform to generate stem cell-derived human organoids for any tissue and for high-throughput drug screenings, toxicity testing, and modeling normal human organ development and diseases.