Production and Characterization of an Attrition-Milled Alumina Powder

Abstract

The breakage mechanisms and fine grinding characteristics of alumina were investigated to develop high-performance structured catalyst for fuel cell powered vehicles applications by means of a stirred ball attrition mill. The variation of particle size with grinding time was measured and grinding rate constant with grinding time was estimated by calculating mathematical modeling applying to theoretical grinding equation. The grinding kinetics approach was successfully applied to the analysis of particle size distributions obtained under various grinding times. It was found that grinding rate constant decreased with increasing solid contents and media size. It was identified that the pH-value of the product suspension slightly increased with the specific surface area during the comminuting process. The particle size distributions estimated from grinding rate constant were in good agreement with the experimental data.