The planetary ball mill is a common equipment for the pre-grinding of laboratory samples. It can grind materials finely, but the grinding effect of the planetary ball mill is affected by many factors, including samples, grinding balls, grinding methods and so on.

Factors affecting grinding effect of lab planetary ball mill

1. Sample feeding particle size

The smaller the feeding particle size of the sample, the easier it is to be ground to be finer, so reduce the sample size as much as possible before grinding.

2. Sample properties

Some samples are spherical, which is not very favorable for ball milling, because the grinding ball is also spherical, so the contact area is greatly reduced, which weakens the effect of friction and makes the grinding effect worse. Therefore, for spherical samples, smash it before grinding. In addition, for some viscous or soft samples, it can be pre-frozen in a liquid nitrogen tank to increase its hardness to achieve better grinding effect.

3. Grinding time

The longer the grinding time, the longer the grinding ball will act on the sample, and the easier it is for the sample to be ground.

4. Ball-to-material ratio

The ball-to-material ratio is the volume ratio of the grinding ball to the sample material. Generally, for initial grinding, the volume ratio between grinding ball, sample material and reserved grinding space should be 1:1:1. For subsequent grinding, the ball-to-material ratio can be adjusted according to the previous grinding conditions.

5. Grinding ball configuration of ball mill

Reasonable configuration of grinding balls also has a great influence on the grinding of samples, mainly the ratio of the number of grinding balls of different sizes. The grinding balls of different sizes play different roles in ball milling.

6. Grinding method

Grinding methods are mainly divided into dry grinding and wet grinding, and some need vacuum grinding. For samples that are to be ground down to nanoscale, wet grinding is easier than dry grinding to grind the sample down to nanoscale.