Influence of dry and wet grinding conditions on fineness and shape of particle size distribution of product in a ball mill

The influence of grinding conditions on the production of fine particles and the width of the particle size distribution produced during ball mill grinding was investigated. The grinding experiments were carried out varying the grinding ball diameter under dry and wet conditions. The relation between the weight passing size observed in an arbitrary cumulative undersize fraction and the grinding time was expressed by modifying Tanaka's semi-theoretical equation for the grinding limit. The fineness of the product was evaluated by the median particle size in undersize distribution, and the shape of the particle size distributions by three different size ratios calculated using 10%, 20%, 50%, 80% and 90% cumulative weight passing sizes, that showed the width of the particle size distribution. The median particle sizes of product obtained for the grinding limit in wet and dry conditions were around 0.5-0.6 mu m and 2 mu m, respectively. The width of the particle size distribution in wet grinding decreased with decreasing median particle size of the ground product, and the size distribution in dry grinding became nearly constant. The particle size distribution width was lowered by using smaller grinding balls in wet condition and larger grinding balls in dry condition. (C) 2010 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.