Toll milling, also known as toll processing, toll manufacturing or tolling, involves providing custom milling, mixing and blending services, and other processing/manufacturing processes, on a customer’s product for a fee, or “toll”.

Milling of a product is achieved by the wet milling or dry milling process. Dry milling generally cannot break apart a product to conserve its parts for other uses. Wet milling is a more intensive process with additional steps, but the process is able to break a product down into more components, and into finer particles, allowing for the production of a greater variety of byproducts.

Wet milling is a more energy-intensive, labor-intensive process, and requires more expensive milling equipment. However, wet milling’s ability to produce additional valuable byproducts can be far more profitable for manufacturers than dry milling, if they can afford the necessary equipment and personnel to accomplish it.

When processing materials today, manufacturers face the challenge of controlling labor and energy costs while producing finer and finer particle sizes, in particular in the areas of automotive paints, pigments, specialty coatings and pharmaceuticals. These small particle sizes cannot be achieved with traditional mills, but the costs involved with installing precision, high-energy media mills can be prohibitive, and no single system can do everything. Even simple wet milling and mixing installations can require additional premix equipment, tanks, mixers, pumps, filters, electronics and plumbing.

Benefits of Toll Milling

CMC offers a wide range of toll milling and toll processing for wet-milled applications, primarily in the paints, coatings, inks, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and specialty chemical industries. They are able to process small-scale batches of one gallon to production-size batches of 2,000 gallons. Its processes for reducing particle size in solids contribute to auto paints, digital inks, and lithium-ion batteries.

Toll processors have multiple mills, mixers and high-speed dispersion units that can be customized and fine-tuned to fit every situation. In today’s competitive business environment, toll processing allows manufacturers to run small quantities of a product to evaluate or test market before putting it into full production. Toll grinding of organic pigments to nanometers increases their strength, requiring a lower quantity in inks, paints or dyes, and thereby reduces manufacturing costs.  In effect, outside toll processors, such as CMC , provide supplemental manufacturing capacity. This makes them a seamless, cost-effective solution for manufacturing challenges.

When business needs change, toll production offers these benefits:

  • No expense for capital equipment investment or depreciation
  • No floor space, facility expansion or additional manpower required
  • No expense for equipment maintenance, spare parts or emergency repairs
  • Wide variety of equipment available for different applications
  • Milling systems are versatile and can be configured for one- or multi-pass operation
  • Production quantities can be changed to meet demand
  • Analytical lab support and quality control testing ensures the highest product quality
  • Milling, mixing, particle reduction and delivery of products on short notice
  • Production meets all regulatory requirements
  • Knowledge and experience working with a variety of materials

CMC is a leading supplier of media mills, grinding mills and basket mills, and an innovator of dispersion technology. In addition to custom and toll processing, the company provides inventory management, packaging, labeling, storage of finished products, and a wide range of other services. CMC will put their experience to work to meet your unique milling requirements and achieve your desired product at the maximum yield.