Milling Media and Grinding Balls. Applications and Selection Criteria

Milling Media, Grinding Media and Grinding Balls. Applications and Selection Criteria

Milling media and grinding balls are used for milling or grinding processes to crush, grind and mill various materials.  There is a variety of milling media materials such as:

• Steel (chrome steel, and stainless steel, 304SS and 316SS)
• Ceramics (agate, alumina, yttria stabilized zirconia, zirconium silicate, zirconia toughened alumina, and tungsten carbide)

At MSE Supplies, our MSE PRO™ milling equipment and milling media have been widely used by both research institutions and manufacturing companies worldwide, such as NASA, 3M and Toyota.

Grinding media or milling media can be used in milling and dispersion in the following applications.

• Advanced ceramics
• Bio technologies (DNA & RNA isolation)
• Chemicals including agrochemicals, e.g. fungicides, insecticides
• Coatings, paints, printing and inkjet inks
• Electronic materials and components, e.g. CMP slurry, ceramic capacitors, conductive inks
• Food processing
• Lithium ion battery materials
• Nanomaterials
• Minerals processing
• Organic synthesis
• Pigments and dyes
• Pharmaceuticals

Key properties of grinding and milling media are size, density, hardness, and composition.  The materials scientists and engineers from MSE Supplies have expertise in grinding and milling processes and can recommend the best suited grinding and milling media material, shape, size and quantity for your particular application. Contact us to discuss your milling media needs. MSE Supplies offers a wide variety of grinding media and milling media in kg and tons.  The selection of milling media depends on several factors as explained below. 

• Initial and final particle sizes of the materials – The size of milling media should be selected based on the initial and final particle sizes of the material. Multiple milling steps using different size milling media may be needed to achieve the best milling effect. It is also possible to use a combination of milling media sizes in a single milling process to achieve desired final particle size. 
• Density – Milling media with higher density usually have better milling efficiency and can lead to smaller final particle size of the material to be ground. The media should have higher specific gravity than the material to be milled.
• Hardness – Harder media have higher wear resistance, less contamination, and better milling efficiency.
• Composition – The selection of media composition depends on the compatibility with the material to be milled, and the container and liner materials used in the milling process. The goal is to minimize contamination and yet to achieve the best milling effect. 
• Cost – Tungsten carbide and zirconia milling media typically have higher cost than alumina and agate milling media, however, they are also more wear resistant and provide better milling efficiency, and therefore, the actual milling operation costs can be lower even though the milling media cost is higher.

MSE Supplies offers a wide variety of grinding media and milling media with the package size ranging from kg and tons.  Contact us to discuss your milling media needs.