Technological and economical investigation of glaze preparation using dry stirred media mill

Ceramic tiles are the most common building material for floor and wall coverings in many countries. Glazed tiles are produced from mixture of frits and some additional raw materials applied on the surface of green tiles and subjected to a firing process. A new method of processing of glaze that is dry stirred media mill was investigated in a pilot grinding plant. The produced glaze particle size, shape and surface area are measured. The comparison was made with the product of conventional wet discontinue ball mills using the same wall tile glaze recipes. The results indicated that dry stirred media mill can provide product that have finer particle size distribution, more stable product compared to the conventional wet ball milling. The glaze thermal expansion and optical properties such as colour (L, a and b parameters) of the produced glazes were measured and comparison was also made in details. Finally, the microstructural characteristics of the produced glazes were determined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results have shown that dry stirred media mill enhances glaze properties and process economy considerably.