GRINDING

A grinding mill is a unit operation designed to break a solid material into smaller pieces. A
rotating drum causes friction and attrition between rock pebbles and ore particles.

BALL MILL:- A ball mill is a type of grinder used to grind and blend materials for use in
mineral dressing processes, paints, pyrotechnics, ceramics and selective laser sintering.

Principle:-
It works on the principle of impact and attrition i.e. size reduction is done by impact as the
balls drop from near the top of the shell.

Construction:-
1. A ball mill consists of a hollow cylindrical shell rotating about its axis.
2. The axis of the shell may be either horizontal or at a small angle to the horizontal. It is
partially filled with balls.
3. The grinding media is the balls, which may be made of steel (chrome steel), stainless
steel, ceramic, or rubber.
4. The inner surface of the cylindrical shell is usually lined with an abrasion-resistant
material such as manganese steel or rubber such that less wear takes place in rubber lined
mills.
5. The length of the mill is approximately equal to its diameter.

Working:-
1. In case of continuously operated ball mill, the material to be ground is fed from the left
through a 60° cone and the product is discharged through a 30° cone to the right.
2. As the shell rotates, the balls are lifted up on the rising side of the shell and then they
cascade down (or drop down on to the feed), from near the top of the shell.
3. In doing so, the solid particles in between the balls and ground are reduced in size by
impact.

Advantages:-
1. Cost of installation and grinding medium is low.
2. It is suitable for both batch and continuous operation.
3. It is suitable for open as well as closed circuit grinding.
4. It is applicable for materials of all degrees of hardness.

Disadvantages:-
1. Not used for wet materials.
2. Power requirement is high.

Application:-
1. The ball mill is used for grinding materials such as coal, pigments, and feldspar for
pottery.
2. Grinding can be carried out either wet or dry but the former is performed at low speed.
Blending of explosives is an example of an application for rubber balls.
3. For systems with multiple components, ball milling has been shown to be effective in
increasing solid-state chemical reactivity.
4. Additionally, ball milling has been shown effective for production of amorphous
materials.

CRITICAL VELOCITY OF A BALL MILL:-