# Alumina ball mill media



## bigpagoda (Jan 6, 2018)

Hello,
I came across someone who is getting rid of a bunch of alumina ball mill media that is in good condition for $1/lb. I do not have a ball mill yet but think I would like one someday. They are 1, 1.5, and 2" balls. Is it worth the time to go pick up a barrel of them at this price. And is alumina a good grinding media for e-scrap?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Paul


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## Iggy-poo (Jan 7, 2018)

I use alumina balls in my ball mill and they work well. The bigger ones work better

I don't know about scrap, but they work well for ore. Forget the smaller ones, unless you are wanting to make fine powder of your material. They will wear, and eventually you will end up with little ones. Then you will find out why he's selling them.


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## g_axelsson (Jan 7, 2018)

Iggy-poo said:


> I use alumina balls in my ball mill and they work well. The bigger ones work better
> 
> I don't know about scrap, but they work well for ore. Forget the smaller ones, unless you are wanting to make fine powder of your material. They will wear, and eventually you will end up with little ones. Then you will find out why he's selling them.


Why are you using alumina and not iron balls? All ball mills I've seen in the mining industry is using iron balls.

Göran


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## goldsilverpro (Jan 7, 2018)

I agree with Goran, it depends on the material. Alumina balls provide a grinding action and steel balls provide a crushing action. The Alumina balls might be good for something like certain types of ore, but so would steel balls. For certain types of scrap, like connectors with gold plated connector pins, grinding would be a detriment, since you surely don't want finely ground gold mixed in with finely ground plastic. If you had plastic connectors, you would want a crushing action that heavy iron balls would provide. With iron balls, the ball mill would turn at an optimum RPM so that the balls would drop and fall down on the material when the balls reached the top apex of the mill. I've done quite a bit of ball milling of incinerated jewelers buffing dust and always used steel balls. I would guess that, maybe, the alumina balls might work OK with that, but the steel balls did work very well.


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## bigpagoda (Jan 7, 2018)

I was planning to use steel balls for plastic connectors and such. I was just wondering if it was a good deal at that price. I also believe the alumina balls are acid/alkali resistant.


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## Lou (Jan 8, 2018)

Very good deal.

I may be interested in some


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