Innovative Mixing Solutions Resonant Acoustic® Mixing Coating of Micron Materials With Nanopowder Background Resodyn Acoustic Mixers, Inc. has developed a novel mixer product line that uses low-frequency, high-intensity acoustic energy for mixing. The technology, trademarked as ResonantAcoustic® Mixing (RAM), is applicable to a broad range of mixing classes that include liquid-gas, liquid-liquid, liquid-solid and powder-powder systems. Highlighted in this bulletin is: Coating of micron materials with nanopowder, just one of many applications. Technical Approach ResonantAcoustic® Mixing is capable of cost and time effective mixing of nano- and micron-sized powders (Figure 1). Nano-sized powder such as MgO can be, within minutes, uniformly dispersed and attached to micron-sized Mg powder in the form of an ultrathin film covering surface of all Mg powder particles. After ResonantAcoustic® Mixing, composite Mg/MgO powder can further be processed using conventional Powder Metallurgy, Casting, or Thermal Spray technologies resulting in an Mg microstructure reinforced coatings with uniformly distributed 3D network of MgO nanophase. ResonantAcoustic® Mixing Figure 1: Appearance of micron-sized Mg powder mixed with 2 vol. % 35 nm MgO nanopowder using ResonantAcoustic® Mixing. ResonantAcoustic® Mixing (Figure 2) provides a cost effective method of de-agglomerating MgO nano-powders and thoroughly mixing them with micron-sized Mg powders as a precursor for various conventional technologies used to create Mg parts with uniformly distributed MgO nanophase. The following are key advantages for using ResonantAcoustic® Mixing for processing Mg/MgO material: • • Creating fully and uniformly mixed MgO/Mg precursor powder in minutes. Safe processing of highly reactive Mg powder because the resulting composite powder consists of Mg particles encapsulated with a protective nanofilm of MgO. Mixing can be conducted in air, vacuum, inert gas, or other controlled atmospheres. Laboratory and production mixers are commercially available. Figure 2: ResonantAcoustic® Mixing principles (top); LabRAM benchtop mixer with access

Innovative Mixing Solutions Resonant Acoustic® Mixing Coating of Micron Materials With Nanopowder Technology Description ResonantAcoustics® Mixing (Figure 2) is a newly developed technology that is based on the use of low-frequency, highintensity acoustic energy to create a uniform shear field throughout an entire mixing vessel. A closely controlled electromechanical oscillator is used to excite mix material using a proprietary method that is designed to operate at resonance. The entire system oscillates in resonance, allowing highly efficient energy transfer and rapid mixing. Multiple micro-mixing...

Innovative Mixing Solutions Resonant Acoustic® Mixing Coating of Micron Materials With Nanopowder Figure 4: (a) High energy secondary electron SEM images of pure Mg powder and (b) Mg powder mixed with 2 vol. % of MgO nanopowder that exhibited “charging” phenomena (light zones on particle surface) due to nonconductive MgO film present on the surface of all Mg particles. In addition to the RAM technology approach used in this work, a proprietary method that can be incorporated to enhance its “milling” capabilities for strongly agglomerated particles. This approach is well suited for deagglomerating...