Grindability of Quartz in Stirred Media Mill

Abstract

Nowadays, ultrafine grinding in the submicron particle size range is becoming an increasingly conventional process. One of the mostly used ultrafine grinding ways is the size reduction in the so called stirred media mill. This article deals with the experimental investigation of wet grinding of quartz in a stirred media mill. The applicability of the introduced operating Rittinger index and the lower limit size of Rittinger law are studied. Furthermore, the effect of solid concentration of suspension, ball filling ratio, circumferential speed of the stirrer, and size of grinding media on the fineness (median particle size and specific surface area) was examined. Additionally, a relative grindability calculated from the operating Rittinger index is introduced in order to compare the efficiency of stirred media milling. It was found that the grinding conditions greatly affect the applicability of Rittinger's law and its lower limit size.