Aluminium flake powder for pigments is now usually manufactured by ball-mill method, instead of conventional stamp-mill method.
In order to develop a new process through comparative studies on those two methods, many experiments were made and the following facts were found out:
1. In the batch-type ball-mill, the ground material is elongated and disintegrated in the primary stage, but in the later stage, aluminium particles are aggregated together and grow into thick and polygonal particles. The covering properties of the powder thus decrease. This phenomenon is caused by many factors, particularly by quantity of material charged and the weight of steel ball used.
2. In the compound-type ball mill, into which N
2 gas stream is introduced, the produced fine particles are carried away so that the aggregation does not take place. The flake powder with higher covering properties is thus obtained.
3. Aluminium flake powder with high leafing properties can be obtained by agitating the powder in solvent which contains certain surface-active agents. In this case, type of solvent, griding method with agitation and other factors give different effects on the leafing properties of the powder.
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