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Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 23 (2006) 448-456
Combination of the Particle Size Distributions of Some Industrial Minerals Measured by Andreasen Pipette and Sieving Techniques Ugur Ulusoy, Meftuni Yekeler, Cevdet Biçer, Zeynep Gülsoy* (Resubmitted: 15 February 2007; accepted: 14 March 2007) DOI: 10.1002/ppsc.200500988
Abstract It is known that size of the individual particles is the predom inant factor affecting the behavior of particulate materials, and that the size effects becom e increasingly im portant as the particles becom e finer. In this article, particle size distributions (PSDs) m easured by different techniques, i.e. sieving and A ndreasen pipette sedimentation, were com bined for different mill (ball and rod) products of some industrial (talc and quartz) minerals. The corrected sedim entation data came closer to the sieving data. The apparent m ean shape factors, r, deter-
m ined from the corrected PSD s for the talc m ineral ground by ball and rod mill were found to be 1.34, 0.62, whereas it was 1.00, 1.12 for the quartz m ineral ground by ball and rod mill, respectively. The results show that the ball m illed products of talc m ineral have m ore regular (rounder in shape) particles than those of rod milled, but the rod m illed products of quartz m ineral studied were not m ore regular in shape than ball milled products of quartz m ineral as confirmed by the SEM pictures and reviewed literature.
Keywords: industrial minerals, particle size distribution (PSD), sedim entation size, shape factor, sieve size
1 In tro d u c tio n Particulate m aterials such as cem ent, soil, brick, ceramics, pigments, m ortar, paint, glass and m etals play an increasingly im portant role in m odern society. The majority of the m aterials handled by industry are in particle form. Tens of billions of tons of m aterial are handled each year by industries such as mining, chemical, construction, farming, waste products [1]. The behavior and properties of particulate m aterials are, to a large extent, dependent on particle m orphology, size and size distribution [2]. M oreover, a param eter th at often needs to be quantified is the particle size, expressed as a distribution, in the processing of particulate m aterial into the required form [3]. For m aterials with very wide size distributions, it will often be required that m ore than one technique be applied
*
Dr. U. Ulusoy, Prof. Dr. M. Yekeler (corresponding author), C. Biçer, Z. Gülsoy, Cumhuriyet University, Department of Mining Engineering, 58140, Sivas (Turkey). E-mail:
[email protected]
V ^ în tçrS cie n ce *
http://www.ppsc-journal.com
in order to cover the whole size range. This introduces additional difficulties in matching the various parts of the distribution which may arise from the different definitions of size [4]. Sieving is the m ost widely used m ethod for particle size analysis, basically because it can produce very good data in a relatively short time. It covers a very wide range of particle size, this range often being the one of m ost industrial importance. How ever, this m ethod is only routinely applicable for particles larger than 400 mesh (38 im nom inal size), w hereas often im portant information is contained in the size distribution of m aterial less than 400 mesh. It is common, therefore to use screening down to 400 m esh and a sub-sieve sizing m ethod for that fraction below 400 m esh [5]. A ndreasen pipette m ethod, which is one of the sedimentation methods, is among the m ost widely applied m ethods for sub-sieving m easurem ents. The m ethod is simple, cheap and readily available. It has the advantage of producing a true fractional size analysis. The device is suitable for size m easurem ent in the range 1 to 50 im [4]. O n the other hand, it is extrem ely tedious, as long settling times are required for very fine particles, and
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