Introduction
Rutile is an essential mineral containing titanium dioxide (TiO2). It is used for a wide range of applications such as pigments, catalysts, optical components, and coating materials. As a form of amorphous ceramic, it is also used to cast iron, and the performance of casting products is closely related to the particle size and sphericity of the rutile. In this study, the number of pearlescent bodies in rutile and the classification rate of crawling were analyzed.
Hammer Crusher and Jet Mill
To obtain consistent and uniform particle size and spherical particles, the particle size and shape of the rutile should be closely monitored. The process used in this study was two-stage comminution consisting of a hammer crusher and a jet mill. The hammer crusher breaks the rutile into fragments and the jet mill reduces it to an appropriate size. The jet mill is equipped with a cyclone separator to collect the finer particles in a hopper below the mill.
Analysis of pearlescent body and crawling rate
Pearlescent body
Using the classifier, the number of pearlescent bodies in the rutile was calculated. The classifier is composed of nine bands in which the total number of particles of each size was counted by taking the average of three measurements. In each band, the number of pearlescent bodies was calculated by the volume percent of the particles in each band.
Crawling rate
The crawling rate of the rutile was measured by an air-micronizer. The air-micronizer was used to measure the diameter of the particles to calculate the crawling rate of the rutile. The crawling rate is the ratio of the particle diameter to the total number of particles.
Results and Discussion
Pearlescent bodies
The results of the analysis of the pearlescent bodies in rutile are shown in Table 1. It can be seen that the number of pearlescent bodies is higher in the finer particles than in the coarser particles. The number of pearlescent bodies in the 0.24-0.30 mm band was highest at 9.68%. This indicates that the finer particles produce the most pearlescent bodies.
Table 1. Number of pearlescent bodies in the rutile
Size (mm) % of pearlescent bodies 0.2-0.24 7.66 0.24-0.30 9.68 0.30-0.36 8.90 0.36-0.42 8.10 0.42-0.48 7.14 0.48-0.54 6.20
Crawling rate
The crawling rate of rutile was calculated to be 9.43%. This indicates that the particles of rutile were of a fine size and were well dispersed.
Conclusion
In this study, the number of pearlescent bodies and the crawling rate of rutile were analyzed. The results showed that the number of pearlescent bodies was highest in the finer particles and the crawling rate of rutile was 9.43%. The results of this study indicate that the grinding parameters should be optimized to obtain more pearlescent bodies and enhance the performance of the casting products.
