Shear forces are used for essentially salt-free coagulation of plastics dispersions or rubber dispersions. For this, method of use is made of an apparatus with at least one shearing module which has a stator and a rotor arranged within the stator, where the surfaces facing toward one another in the stator and in the rotor are in each case smooth, or at least the rotor exhibits a structure formed on its surface and facing from this in the direction of the stator, and between the stator and the rotor there is a gap of predetermined gap width. The process is carried out by passing the dispersion to be coagulated through the gap between stator and rotor and precipitating the dispersion by rotation of the rotor with predetermined shear rate and shear deformation.