Optimization of Parameters of Industrial Mineral Waste Grinding in a Planetary Ball Mill

This paper reports our results on utilization of industrial waste having a multicomponent mineralogical composition and resulting from apatite–nepheline ore beneficiation. Using a high-energy planetary ball mill, the mineral mixture was ground into fine powder. We have studied the process of dispersing the mineral components of the mixture in relation to the main process parameters: vial rotation speed, ball-to-powder weight ratio, and milling time. The results demonstrate that, under “severe” grinding conditions, disintegration of brittle particles of the minerals sphene and aegirine slows down owing to the plasticity of the particles of the minerals apatite and nepheline, which reduces the efficiency of the high-energy grinding process, aimed at reducing the particle size and increasing the specific surface area of the material. The grinding process has been shown to cause not only a reduction in the size of mineral particles, but also changes in their optical properties through amorphization of their surface. This allows mechanically activated powder to be used as a precursor for the preparation of weather-resistant color filler pigments for building and paint materials instead of expensive synthetic analogs.