Determination of Dry Grinding Properties of Floor Tile Wastes

Abstract

In ceramic production, there are around 5-8 % of floor tile defects occurred due to unsuitable body compositions or operational failure. The reuse of those fired products creates problems due to the difficult grindability features. These kinds of wastes are stored near factories and create vital environmental problems. There are some attempts to utilize these waste materials by adding to the recipes at small amounts. However, the grinding efficiency of the system is detrimentally affected and the grinding costs increases sharply. The aim of this work is to determine the dry grinding properties of floor tile wastes in order to utilize more and economical manner in the process. This paper includes grinding experiments in the laboratory dry ball mill. It is driven by inverter motor and control panel that allow to adjust the mill rotational speed, measure the grinding time and required energy consumption. Systematic grinding tests were carried out to observe the effect of feed particle size, feed rate, material moisture and mill rotational speed on the grinding efficiency. Finally, it was sought to use the dry prepared powder in glazed porcelain body composition. It was found that there are no inconvenient results on the sintered body up to usage of 20%.