The Industrial Effects of Ball Type on Ceramic Porcelain Tile Body Grinding

Raw materials such as feldspar, kaolin and illitic clay are used in the preparation of ceramic porcelain tile compositions according to their specific properties. Such raw materials are ground in ball mills in order to reduce the particle size to a certain value determined according to the operating conditions. In this study, it was aimed to compare capacity, time and energy spent in the grinding process of porcelain tile composition by using alumina and silica grinding medium from an industrial perspective. In this context, firstly, the grinding properties of the raw materials were determined with porcelain ball mill and Bond mill, separately. Bond Work Index values of magnesite, clay, kaolin and feldspar were determined as 8.7, 7.9, 12.3 and 14.2 kWh/ton, respectively. Then industrial grinding of a porcelain body was executed with a discontinuous horizontal ball mill. The industrial grinding studies showed that porcelain body was ground at 480 and 720 min to reach 2% sieve residue for +45 µm with alumina and silica ball, respectively, which resulted as 625 ton/h capacity difference. Lastly, the ground materials in alumina and silica medium were compared in terms of water absorption, shrinkage, color and SEM analysis after sintering in porcelain tile conditions.