Stereoscopic and high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) techniques have been employed to study the flow field induced by a sawtooth (EkatoMizer) impeller, operated in the fully turbulent flow regime at an impeller speed of 1500 rpm. Ensemble-averaged mean flow fields and turbulence quantities were calculated for a region close to the impeller blades. The flow was found to be anisotropic near the impeller and exhibited return-to-isotropy behaviour further away from it. Macro-instabilities were found to have a high probability of occurrence in the discharge stream. All three velocity components from the stereo-PIV measurements were used to estimate the dissipation rate, by adopting a large eddy simulation (LES) analogy. Spurious vectors distorting the dissipation rate calculation were identified, and various standard deviation filters were applied for vector validation. By evaluating the filtered dissipation rate profiles against the multifractal intermittency model of Meneveau and Sreenivasan (1991), the global standard deviation filter was found to be the most suitable type. The ratio of the maximum to the mean (epsilon(max)/(epsilon) over bar) dissipation rate for the EkatoMizer discharge stream was found to be similar to that reported for Rushton disk turbine and pitched-blade turbine impellers in the literature, raising questions about the reported high-shear advantage of sawtooth impellers. However it should be noted that these PIV experiments were conducted outside the sawtooth blades and it is possible that the maximum dissipation rate occurs within the impeller swept volume, where epsilon(max)/(epsilon) over bar could be significantly higher. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.