Ultrasonic Wet-Milling and Micro-Grinding

Ultrasonication is an efficient means for the wet-milling and micro-grinding of particles. Besides dispersing and deagglomerating, the wet milling is an important application of Hielscher ultrasonic devices. 

In particular for the manufacturing of superfine-size slurries, ultrasound has many advantages, when compared with common size reduction equipment, such as: colloid mills (e.g. ball mills, bead mills), disc mills, jet mills, rotor-stator mixers (ultra turrax) or high-pressure homogenizers. Ultrasonication allows for the processing of high-concentration and high-viscosity slurries – therefore reducing the volume to be processed. Ultrasonic milling is especially suited to process micron-size and nano-size materials, such as ceramics, alumina trihydrate, barium sulphate, calcium carbonate and metal oxides. The tables below show microscopic images of the milling of alumina trihydrate (from 150 micron down to 10 micron), ceramics (from 30 micron down to 2 micron) and sodium carbonate (from 70 micron down to 3 micron).

Microscope progress images of ultrasonic milling of Hydrated Alumina