Parameter Optimization of Ball Milling Process for Silica Sand Tailing

The development of powder metallurgy technology has affected the increasing demand for powder materials lately. The powder production process uses physical methods, such as grinding with a ball mill more effective and more environmentally friendly than other methods. The parameters used in the ball mill process are relatively large, however there are several parameters that have a significant effect on the reduction grain size produced. This experiment was designed using the Taguchi method to find the optimum parameters in the production process of mircoparticles silica sand tailing. Orthogonal arrays and signal-to-noise ratios are applied to study the performance characteristics of processing parameters. The three main parameters applied in this study are Ball to Powder weight Ratio (BPR), time milling process, and rotational speed (rpm). The materials used in the study was Bangka silica sand tailing, with an average size of D50: 267 µm, based on the measurement of Particle Size Analyzer (PSA). The results of signal-to-noise analysis obtained the optimum parameter values in a row are: 100 rpm for milling speed parameter, 15: 1 for BPR parameter and 120 minutes for time-miling parameter. The powder size experiment verification of the ball mill process optimization parameter is D50 : 14.99 µm. (paper)