Abstract:
Flaky metal powders commonly used as paint and pigments, are generally produced by grinding in ball mills or vibration mills. The key to good quality powder production is to optimize the processing parameters. In the present work grinding of brass particles is studied in detail in a laboratory size ball mill to determine the optimal levels of the ball to material ratio, type and amount of additives, mill speed, ball load, etc. The quality of the powder is assessed on the basis of water coverage, degree of flattening and luster by visual inspection. Preliminary results in a 35 cm diameter ball mill with 30% ball load show that a material to ball ratio of 0.067 with a 0.1% dosage of stearic acid is required for good quality powder. For determining optimal mill speed and ball size a 2(2) factorial design of experiment has been followed. It has been determined that to achieve best powder quality the mill must run at 70% critical speed and the ball size must not exceed 20 mm. The quality of the powder assessed through SEM study for surface morphology and particle size analysis compares very well with the industrial samples. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.