Our partner Oliver + Batlle keeps an active blog on paint and coatings production, with machine guides alongside write-ups of its own installations. Three recent articles are worth reading if you are planning a paint manufacturing plant or upgrading part of one: a pilot plant for Hempel, a guide to the finishing stage, and a new water-based coating line at EUROTEX in Spain. Here is what each one covers, and what New Zealand paint and coatings manufacturers can take from them.
A Pilot Plant for Testing New Formulations at Hempel
Hempel, the Danish maker of marine, protective and industrial coatings, asked O+B to equip a pilot plant at its Polinyà site near Barcelona. A pilot plant does a different job from a production line. It runs short trials on many different formulations, and every batch has to start clean, or residue from the last trial affects the next result.
O+B built the plant around a Dispermix VF-4-N high-speed disperser, with everything else fitted onto the disperser’s telescopic lid:
- Safety: a product level control makes sure the dispersing disc runs safely, as part of an ATEX-compliant set-up.
- Powder addition: a loading port with a hopper for emptying bags.
- Dust extraction: an extraction connection with an automated valve.
- Cleaning: a cleaning head, fed by a pneumatic pump that circulates solvent through the disperser and vessel at the end of each batch.
The disperser works with three vessels: a compact DM-45, a DM-90 with cooling, and a larger DM-200. Fitting the internal components around the dispersing disc in the DM-45 was the tightest part of the design. O+B reports that commissioning tests showed the unit handled the planned range of products, including high-viscosity formulations, and changed over between products without cross-contamination.
Read the full article: Paint pilot plant: a tailored engineering solution for Hempel.
Oliver + Batlle Dispermix – disperser for medium and low viscosity paint.
Getting the Finishing Stage Right
Finishing comes after dispersion and grinding, and before filtration and filling. The remaining liquids (resins, emulsions or solvents) are blended into the dispersed base, colour is adjusted with tinting pastes, and the batch is kept in suspension until it is filled. The aim is to reach the target viscosity, density and colour. The QC lab sets the final adjustments, including pH for water-based paints, and these are made in the finishing tank.
O+B’s main point is that the agitator should not be chosen on viscosity alone. Batch volume, rheology (thixotropic paints thin under shear and recover at rest), how readily the product settles, and how often the tank changes product all affect the impeller design, speed and power. The article compares the common impeller types:
| Impeller | Suited To | Cleaning |
|---|---|---|
| Sabre | Resins, emulsions, solvents and slurries; most paint types | Easy |
| Double-flow sabre | Medium-viscosity paints | Easy |
| Inclined blade | Medium-viscosity paints | Easy |
| Folding-arm sabre (for IBCs) | Medium- and low-viscosity paints | Moderate |
| Anchor or mini-anchor | Medium-viscosity paints, including products that tend to settle | Harder |
Where one tank handles several products, a geometry that is easy to clean is often worth more than a small gain in mixing performance. Finishing also needs gentle agitation, which is a different job from the high shear that breaks down pigment agglomerates earlier in the process. Our industrial paint mixer article covers that earlier step.
Read the full article: The paint finishing stage in the manufacturing process.
Oliver + Batlle Flash 52
A New Water-Based Coating Line at EUROTEX
EUROTEX makes industrial and decorative paints, primers, sealers and waterproofing products at El Viso del Alcor, near Seville. It needed a new production unit for water-based products, running before its next production campaign, in a building short on both floor space and height.
O+B supplied the process from dispersion through to filling:
- Dispersion and finishing: a Dispermix VF-132-E high-speed disperser serving two DE-7200 tanks, each with a manhole, powder and liquid addition points and dust extraction.
- Transfer and filtration: an MF-16 pneumatic pumping and filtering unit.
- Filling: a FLASH-21 volumetric filling machine with a hygienic hopper, electronic level sensor, cleaning system and lid dispenser.
To work within the space, O+B designed a platform joined to the existing one, with equipment above and below it and safety gates for pallet access. O+B carried out the site measurements, layout engineering, mechanical assembly and commissioning. EUROTEX’s own contractors did the electrical and pneumatic installation under O+B supervision.
The two-tank layout is what lifts output: one batch is filled from one tank while the next batch starts in the other. For more on choosing a filler, see our paint filling machine guide.
Read the full article: New water-based coating manufacturing and filling plant: process optimisation at EUROTEX.
Oliver + Batlle volumetric paint tin filling machine
What the Three Projects Have in Common
- Cleaning is designed in from the start. Each project plans for product changeovers, whether through a solvent cleaning head on a pilot disperser, an easy-to-clean impeller in a multi-product finishing tank, or a cleaning system on the filler.
- The equipment is designed around the site. A crowded disperser lid at Hempel and a low-ceilinged building at EUROTEX were both solved by engineering the equipment to fit the space available.
- The line is planned as a whole. Each step, from powder addition to the filled pail, affects the next. That is why APS looks at the whole process, combining Silverson high shear mixing, Russell Finex filtration ahead of filling, and O+B dispersion, grinding and filling. Our overview of paint manufacturing equipment sets out each step.
More From the Oliver + Batlle Blog
The three articles covered here:
- Paint pilot plant: a tailored engineering solution for Hempel (20 October 2026)
- The paint finishing stage in the manufacturing process (17 September 2026)
- New water-based coating manufacturing and filling plant: process optimisation at EUROTEX (9 September 2026)
O+B publishes new articles regularly on mixing, grinding, filling and plant engineering. Recent topics include basket milling and pipeline cleaning systems for paint factories. You can browse them all on the Oliver + Batlle blog.
Talk to APS About Your Paint Plant
APS is the exclusive New Zealand agent for Oliver + Batlle. Whether you are planning a pilot plant, a new production line or a single disperser, see the full range on our Oliver + Batlle partner page, or contact the APS team.
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