Analysis of individual and interaction effects of processing parameters on wet grinding performance in ball milling of alumina ceramics using statistical methods

Abstract

It is of great interest and necessary to closely investigate and understand how ball milling parameters can affect the overall quality of milled ceramic powders. In this paper, we analyzed the individual and interaction effects of the key processing parameters on the wet grinding performance in a ball mill for alumina powder using statistical methods. The grinding performance was evaluated based on three quality characteristics of milled alumina powder: the median particle size (d50), width and skewness reflecting the shape of particle size distributions (PSDs). For this determination, the volume percentage of slurry, solid content, milling speed, milling time, and ball size are regarded as the key parameters affecting these characteristics. Milling experiments were designed by central composite design, and an experimental dataset was collected systematically. The analysis results show that it is worthwhile to consider not only the d50 but also the shape of the PSDs when assessing the ball milling performance. These results are useful for the production of high-quality alumina powders in ceramic industries.