Mixer Mill MM 400

In this whitepaper, Retsch discusses the role of laboratory ball mills in the battery production cycle, spanning from research and development to manufacturing and quality control. These mills serve in various capacities, from small-scale pilot plants to large-scale Giga factories and recycling plants. The paper offers a comprehensive overview of ball mills in battery technology, highlighting their diverse applications throughout the production process and emphasizing their importance in preparing samples for analysis. It includes ten specific application examples providing a thorough understanding of their technology.

In the rapidly expanding world of cannabis legalization and consumption, ensuring the highest standards of quality control is paramount for safeguarding public health and safety. As cannabis products become increasingly available to a growing global market, comprehensive quality control measures are indispensable to guarantee consistent potency, purity, and safety. In this application note, explore the role of laboratory mills in quality control and small scale production of cannabis and related products.

In this application note, RETSCH GmbH discusses the importance of sample preparation for various biological materials. RETSCH offers a range of mills and grinders for pulverization, cell disruption, and homogenization of biological samples. The note highlights the use of RETSCH mills for applications such as cell disruption of yeasts, microalgae, and bacteria, homogenization of soft and tough samples like sputum or liver, cryogenic grinding, and pulverization of forensic samples.

Joint replacements, especially of hip and knee joints, rank among the most frequent surgical interventions in industrialized countries. One of the major risks of a joint replacement is prosthetic joint infection (PIJ), a bacterial infection at the interface of the implant, tissue, and bone. Accurate diagnosis of the involved microbes is essential to select a targeted treatment. The classification of different microorganisms which cause PIJ with conventional methods is in many cases limited. In this application note, Retsch presents a new method which allows for the diagnosis of up to 8 samples with a high documentation rate. The method involves washing the microbes off the tissue samples with 20 ml sterile water and 5 ml glass beads of 1 mm diameter at 30 Hz in a RETSCH mixer mill within 210 seconds.

In this application note, Retsch introduces a new method for diagnosing prosthetic joint infections (PIJ) with high documentation rate using the Mixer Mill MM 400. PIJ is a bacterial infection at the interface of implant, tissue, and bone which requires accurate diagnosis for targeted treatment. Retsch's new adapter for the Mixer Mill MM 400 allows for simultaneous treatment of up to 8 samples with a simple and effective method. The MM 400 is a multi-purpose mill suitable for fine and ultrafine grinding of various materials, including cell disruption of bacteria or yeast cells.

A very efficient method of cell disruption is bead beating, where cells in suspension are mechanically disrupted by glass beads in single use reaction vials. In this application note, the RETSCH Mixer Mill MM 400 in combination with the Falcon tube adapter is used to make the cell disruption process reproducible, fast and efficient. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated using examples of cell disruption of yeast cells (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and microalgae cells (Thalassiosira pseudonana and Phaeodactylum tricornutum).

Due to the fact that only a very small amount can be won from each animal, cashmere wool is an expensive resource for the textile industry, which makes it susceptible to falsifications. This case study describes a method, developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME), which allows for the reliable detection of the falsification of such products. The optimization of the extraction of animal fibres is based, among other things, on the use of RETSCH’s Mixer Mill MM 400.

The main objective of x-ray fluorescence analysis is the quantitative determination of elements which requires a high degree of accuracy and reproducibility. Both parameters are directly related to the quality of the sample preparation. This application note demonstrates how the RETSCH Mixer Mill MM 400 can be used prepare homogenous particle sizes to ensure good reproducibility.

One of the most important tasks of environmental laboratories is the toxic analysis of biological samples. This application note presents two examples of the successful use of Retsch instruments for the gentle and neutral-to-analysis preparation of such material. Results show that the Retsch mills ZM 200 and MM 301 are both highly suitable for cryogenic grinding as they allow for the gentle and efficient pulverization of the sample material.

In this application note the preparation process of human and animal hair for subsequent analysis is examined using a choice of two types of RETSCH mixer mills. With the option of cryogenic grinding these mills cover a vast range of forensic and biological applications.

Watch this video from Retsch to see how the MM 400 Mixer mill, a compact and versatile bench top unit, is the optimal device for the preparation of small samples. With its high performance and great flexibility, the MM400 is a unique product in the market, with a wide range of applications.