As an early impeller design for stirred tank applications, the simple geometry of the Flat Blade Turbine impeller facilitates radial stirring and blending. This impeller still has use when creating zonal mixing flow patterns to turn a stirred tank into an approximated plug flow reactor. By installing horizontal baffles, back mixing can be reduced between stages and reactor designs can be optimized.

Heat transfer applications also utilize the flat blade turbine impeller. Being a function of flow and turbulence, the importance to provide sufficient flow across heating or cooling coils to facilitate reactors is great, especially when runaway prevention requires removal of heat from highly exothermic reactions.