Twenty years ago this summer, we became the UK distributor for THINKY mixers.
This image has always been one of my favourite demonstrations of what THINKY mixing technology can do. Two pieces of modelling clay, mixed in a few minutes. From distinct layers, to partial mixing, to beautifully uniform colour. It’s a simple visual, but it captures something that matters in every laboratory and manufacturing environment: consistent, repeatable mixing without introducing bubbles.
Over the past 20 years we’ve supplied hundreds of THINKY mixers across the UK. They’ve found homes in research laboratories, universities, process development teams and production facilities. They appear in countless published research papers along the way – a search of Nature.com brings up more than 300 results for “THINKY”. We have many case studies which show the extensive range of projects we have helped with, and white papers and application bulletins to explain and support their use across many applications.
The machines themselves have evolved, becoming more capable and easier to use, but the core planetary centrifugal mixing technology that made them so effective remains the same. In an industry obsessed with the next innovation, it’s worth remembering that some technologies endure because they solve the problem so well in the first place. That’s often the sign of a genuinely elegant engineering solution: once you’ve harnessed the physics, you spend the next twenty years refining the implementation rather than reinventing the principle.
But the real measure of success isn’t the number of machines we’ve sold. It’s the materials they’ve helped develop, the processes they’ve improved, and the products they’ve helped bring to market.
If you’ve never seen a THINKY mixer in action, you’re welcome to visit our Technology Centre. Some technologies are best understood when you see them for yourself.
