Can we ball mill a clay and make it more colloidal? Yes.

Friday 21st October 2011

This 1000 ml 24 hour sedimentation test compares insight-live.com/material/1142">Plainsman A2 ball clay ground to 10 mesh (left) with that same material ball milled for an hour (right). The 10 mesh designation is a little misleading, those are agglomerates. When it is put into water many of those particles break down releasing the ultimates and it does suspend fairly well. But after 24 hours, not only has it settled completely from the upper section but there is a heavy sediment on the bottom. But with the milled material it has only settled slightly and there is no sediment on the bottom. Clearly, using an industrial attrition ball mill this material could be made completely colloidal.

Pages that reference this post in the Digitalfire Reference Library:

Ball Clay, UPSD Ultimate Particle Size Distribution, Ultimate Particles, Colloid, Ball milling

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