Catalyst Bed Support Balls

Grinding Balls and Other Grinding Media: Key consumables

Reducing consumable costs is important for all mining operations, but not at the expense of quality. Grinding media represent low fruit for most miners. Very often, the grinding media in question are grinding balls. In some medium-sized mines, milling means represent approximately 10% of total mining operating expenses (OPEX) and significant savings can be achieved.

Selecting the best quality grinding media balls is considered a key step to reduce mining costs. This publication discusses grinding balls and quality control procedures that can be used to select the best grinding balls for particular applications.

Comminution processes require a lot of energy and are inefficient. Some figures suggest that the comminution is responsible for 1% of world energy consumption. As a result, it is important to maximize performance for a given grinding task. Comminution costs include electricity, grinding balls and coatings. Choosing the best quality grinding media improves comminution efficiency.

Grinding balls make up the bulk of consumable costs. They can represent 40% - 45% of the total cost and directly affect the efficiency and wear of a factory. The loading of the ball consists of grinding balls of various sizes and different qualities of material. Balls of grinding media of poor quality have a negative impact on the entire grinding system. Balls of low quality grinding media are consumed faster, are ground inefficiently and use more electricity.

GRINDING MEDIA APPLICATION

• Steel ball grinding media are used to extract precious metals in mineral mineral processing. They are most commonly used in the copper and gold industries.
• The ore particles must go through the process of communion: grinding -> fine grinding -> ultrafine grinding. They are milled to release precious metals from the materials of the bargain before the concentration processes.
• Grinding or communion is done in mills. The mills are partially filled with steel grinding balls or rods, commonly known as 'grinding media'.
• The mills must be continuously filled with new grinding balls as the old ones wear out.
• The choice and consumption of grinding media are mainly related to the volume and characteristics of the mineral (abrasiveness, particle size and specific energy input).

GRINDING BALL USAGE: MEDIA APPLICATION SUITABILITY:

Tower mills: 0.5 "-1.5" grinding balls are recommended. The normal top size of the media used is 10-25 mm, but even smaller grinding balls can be used for very fine grinding.

Isa Mills: <0.1 "grinding balls are recommended. Isa Mill is more efficient when using small media (i.e. high chromium steel balls).

Rotary mills: small cylinders (<1 ") are effective in ultrafine wet milling operations.

SAG mills: 4 "-6" forged steel balls are recommended. Casting balls are not a good choice. Its outer crust is hard (typical Brinell hardness> 450). Molten grinding balls cannot withstand the high impact of the crushing forces of the SAG mill. They are recommended for cement grinding and ultra fine wet grinding operations.

Ball mills: 1 "-4" grinding balls are recommended.

BALL CHARGE QUALITY

You should always try grinding media balls from a new source or supplier. This generally requires testing batches of pilot-scale grinding balls in an industrial mill using the marked ball test. Compare your wear rates with those of your current supplier. For the final evaluation, you may want to perform full load performance tests on one or more milling circuits for a few months.

The factors used to determine the operational use of the quality of the grinding ball include:

• Friction forces between coatings and balls.
• Abrasivity of the feeding material.
• Impact forces in the mill.
• Susceptibility to corrosion, especially in wet processes.

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Simulations show that in some cases:

The use of forged steel balls, compared to low density cast steel balls, increases the yield by 2% -4%.

Specific energy consumption is reduced by up to 3.5% (with constant feed / product size).

Forged steel grinding balls achieve considerably better results when tested against other grid media, such as cylpebs, boulpebs or high chromium balls, taking into account the calculation of the total cost of the grinding process.

SAG Mills performance studies show that low quality cast iron grinding balls with porosity result in the production of a significant excess of steel droppings at the SAG factory. If your milling operation is using this type of grinding balls, consider switching to higher quality balls. They offer more economic viability.

Worn balls can be a source of iron, especially if the wear rate is too high. This could lead to the formation of iron sulfides, which can affect subsequent metallurgical processes. Reduced wear rates are essential.