Cake recipes typically instruct bakers to add wet ingredients to a powdery flour mixture. Adding just the right amount of moisture is critical to making batter: Too little liquid results in dry clumps, whereas too much produces a watery mess. But just the right amount makes a smooth, flowing batter.
Incorporating liquids into powders is also common in industrial materials processing. The applications typically fall in different parts of the wetness spectrum: Production of powdered laundry detergent, for example, employs so-called wet granulation—a small amount of added liquid binds microscopic particles in small clumps, or granules. In the mixing of cement, on the other hand, the desired product is a high-solid-content dispersion that can be poured.
Those processes are more complicated than just mixing components in the right ratios. Inactive ingredients might be added to achieve certain properties. Protocol matters too: Changing how the components are added and how they...
