Crushing Hard, Iron-Base Lumps into Fine Powder

Hi, vishmayor , It's a shame you do not have large chunks of amorphous iron, then you could 'tumble' them all together, and keep adding big lumps as the fine powder was removed. Wet would probably be better than dry tumbling. Very noisy though

Autogenous milling, or self milling as Alistair suggested, can work if the material is brittle enough and it usually starts with large lumps and there are 45 mesh screens to let the fines out.

You have to get a "grinding study" done by a analytical lab.

like these guys.

http://www.orway.com.au/docs/compatability.pdf

Use a Tungsten Carbide Shatterbox. Available from Sample preparation companies.

how does the Carbide shatterer work and where can I find one? I believe there exists a process where carbide bits are immersed in molten zinc and thus they become brittle and break into very small particles easily. As far as I remember, the process was called the 'Cold Stream Process" It is a long time ago that I had heard about it, in fact there was a company, Metallurgical Industries and they had there address as "Cold Stream Way' in Eatontown in New Jersey. I don't think the company exists any more. But somebody should know about this process, also I believe somebody had patented this process too. But I have been unable to find it.

Dear vishmayor may I be so bold as to ask where this operation is undertaken? If it was in Hill Country, with flowing rivers, it might make a huge difference. Sorry for being so inquisitive. Namastee.

the operation is intended to be carried out in a manufacturing facility and large quantities are involved. Also the powder particle size is under 45 microns and not 45 mesh, which was my mistake to start with. Is there no other method available to do this? It seems nobody has heard about the Cold Stream Process, and I supose, I will have to find out more about it

45 micron vishmayor is rather fine, I would pre-crush/grind/whatever, and then source the largest 'taper roller' bearing you could salvage from scrap. Have no fear, it will grind it to 45 micron. no bother. From your name, I assumed this operation may be in India? That is why I asked about the location of your 'manufacturing facility' i.e. is there a plentiful supply of water? etc. I am aware of a recent iron ore extraction at Vrindavana close to Giriraj or Govardhana Hill. Supposedly the axis point of the entire universal cosmic manifestation, bythe account of all vedic scriptures (Sri Srimad Bhagavatam Etc.). Giriraj was once according to Hindu Legend, higher than everest, but is now just a small hill. Devotees there are delighted that steel is going to be made from him. Any Office Block containing steel from Giriraja would be a million times more auspicious and valuable, than if made from CVD Diamond.

Spathic Diamond is an ancient Vedic technology, according to legend, extra-terrestrial spacecraft were fabricated from it. I defer to scholarship from India on that subject.

Postscript:- For those wanting to know the storey of Giriraj.the link is below. It is odd that a kilo of iron ore from Govardhana Hill has a net worth way in excess of many thousands of dollars, should be crushed into powder with a net worth of cents. Not to worry, common sense is just so uncommon in this Kali Yuga Bless.

http://www.vallabhadigvijaya.com/giriraj/gp01.htm

http://www.mines.edu/fs_home/jhoran/ch126/shatter.htm

http://jove.geol.niu.edu/faculty/dickey/shatter.html

http://jove.geol.niu.edu/faculty/dickey/dnd.html

Read... LEARN....and inwardly digest 'VITAL INSTRUCTIONS', by the look of it aurizon or else

Want a cheap solution?

Use "millstone" horizontal counter rotating wheels technology. Obviously not stones in your case, but hardened steel grinding wheels, pre-adjusted to whatever mesh you may need. Although ancient technology, it will work fine as long as your material is brittle. And the best news are, it is cheap if you do not need fancy grinding.

Wangito.

In 1991 BHP Iron Ore needed to crush high grade lump ore (+6 to _25) into fines (-6) for stockpile upgrading purposes. This involved millions of tonnes of ore (Haematite). BHP employed a contractor who used an impact crusher which utilised the self hardness of the material. Crushing from Run Of Mine to -100 had already been done by gyratory crushers and the next step step to lumps and fines by cone crushers. The desired 45 micron size is grinding rather than crushing but the precrushing listed above is likely to help or maybe buy fines product instead of lump. The final grinding can be achieved by SAG and/or ball mills. The old timers used stamper mills to grind ores. Whatever grinding system you use, wear material will be incorporated in the final product

I may have seen one of those ball crushers in operation Emjay4119, circa 1976/8 an Israeli Company 'HZ' were constructing a new road through our Estate in Kenya from Thomson's Falls to Naro Moru, through hill country, Aggregate was needed to build the bridges etc. You could hear the ball mill crusher from about five miles away. and when you got close, one wondered what all those toy Tonker Trucks were doing loading rocks into the ball crusher......until you seemed to become like the 'Million Dollar Man' in slow motion, the closer you walked to the plant, seemed to make no difference to the size of the toy Tonka Trucks.......Then it was like Alice in wonderland, and you had taken a big swig of the 'Drink Me' shrinking potion. Balls? Rocks? more like boulders. The noise was awesome.

Alastair there is some gear around alright. When I last visited the BHP Iron Ore mine at Newman WA the 230ton dump trucks were tipping boulders directly into the gyratory crusher (primary) and after about 30 seconds it would be empty again. That was a few years ago, now we use trucks up to 345 tonnes but I'm sure those gyratories would eat the increased loads just as well. The port at Port Hedland exports somewhere around 100 million tonnes of iron ore per year these days so the gear has to be big.

Emjay4119 .....I WANT ONE! a 350 Tonner, then park it in the high street, and who cares about the 'Parking Ticket', the look on the face of the parking warden would be worth it!

Nine metres wide ought to make the brown bomber's eyes pop a bit. When the trays are returned to Mackay for repair there are two coppers and three contract escort vehicles accompanying the float and pushing everyone off the road. It is all good fun and will only set you back 5 mill or so. As an aside there have been many times when servicemen run over their own utes with dump trucks (rear wheels turn inside front circle), not pretty.

Hi guys,

I want to thank everybody for participating in the discussion and helping me on this mater. It was interestng to read all the comments, some serious, others with a bit of humor and one referring me to the ancient Indian Vedas. Yes I am from India but have been staying here for 27 years. The process is supposed to be done right here in the US. I believe, I have found the solution in one of the suggestion and am sending a sample for a grinding trial and hope to succeed.

Thanks again

Hi Vish

I can hook you up with a large industrial Ball Mill. It was used for crushing refractories, say maybe alumina oxide, or silicon carbide.

The machine I am thinking of is sitting in a plant that I know of. It's a really big machine, maybe 40 ton or so. It requires it's own foundation to be poured.

Let me know if your interested.

Keith

Have a look at the web site for Hicom110, an Australian designed & built mill, I was involved in the manufacture of high precision CNC parts for this mill, it is a very compact super efficient mill. Try

"ausindustry.gov.au/library/hicom" should lead you to contacts to their site.

Brien

Sorry I gave you a bit of a bum steer there, try

www.hicom-mill.com

Brien.