A comparison of dry and wet grinding of a quartzite ground in a small batch ball mill

Classical grinding models involve the selection function (S), which gives the rates of breakage of particles of each screen size fraction, and the breakage function (B), which describes the instantaneous size distributions of fragments produced when the particles of each fraction are broken. In order to investigate the differences between dry and wet grinding as far as the selection and breakage functions are concerned, batch grinding experiments were performed on both dry and wet bases, on the same material, a quartzite, in a small ball mill under similar experimental conditions.On a dry basis, the rates of breakage were found to be time invariant and independent of the size environment in the mill. It is logical to postulate a similar behavior for the breakage function. On a wet basis (65% solids), an increase of the rates of breakage was observed as grinding proceeds. This behavior is essentially due to the variation of the size environment within the mill. This increase in breakage rates was, however, less and less important as the particle size decreased and was not observed for the smallest particles tested. These points were confirmed by considering the disappearance kinetics of samples of different screen size fractions of quartzite injected in the mill during the batch grinding of a limestone. Moreover, it is not impossible that the breakage function could also vary with grinding time, giving rise to finer instantaneous size distributions of fragments as the size environment in the mill becomes finer. As an overall result, wet grinding has appeared more selective than dry grinding for coarse material, while it did not produce more schlamms.