NEKTON-Biotin & NEKTON-S with flow agent in production

Vitamins

Free-flowing in the long term

Even at high humidity

It has been observed that strong temperature fluctuations and high humidity during the transport of our products to customers can destroy the free-flowing properties of powdered vitamin supplements NEKTON-Biotin and NEKTON-S.

Generally, all powders are very hygroscopic (“love” water) and readily absorb moisture from the surrounding air. By binding water, the powdered vitamins clump and cake together, which can negatively affect the appearance of the products (this can even happen in originally sealed product bottles). This can be prevented by adding various flow agents that improve the powder’s free-flowing characteristics.

To prevent hygroscopic powders from clumping and to maintain product quality under extreme environmental conditions, it was decided to manufacture NEKTON-Biotin and NEKTON-S with a small amount of flow agent — sepiolite.

Sepiolite is a mineral rock widely used in the animal feed industry. It is a hydrated magnesium silicate with additional hydroxide ions. Sepiolite formed during the ice age when different rock layers were compressed together. Sepiolite is a natural mineral product which, due to its molecular structure, hardly binds other substances in vitamin premixes, making it suitable for specific applications. Its structure provides a large surface area for moisture absorption, giving it a high capacity for water uptake. Sepiolite has a very low cation exchange capacity (CEC), making it an inert substance, meaning it hardly binds or exchanges other molecules. This property makes sepiolite a suitable flow agent specifically for vitamins and vitamin premixes.

Additionally, using sepiolite as a flow agent increases the stability and shelf life of premixes.

It has also been shown that sepiolite positively influences growth and feed efficiency in various pets.