Jet Mill

Jet Mills are used for micronizing of solids of agro-chemicals, chemicals,

pigments, minerals, pharmaceuticals, thermoplastics and other like heat
sensitive, corrosive and abrasive materials.
Jet Mills operate in compressed air,gas or high pressure superheated steam.
These mills have no moving parts, thereby eliminating contamination due to
contact with external grinding media. No attritional heat is generated during
grinding making it the ideal process to grind heat sensitive and waxy
substance.
Application of Jet Mills in various industries:

Priciple of Operation:
Jet Mill works on fluid energy. Micronozing take place in a shallow,
cylindrical chamber. High pressure air or steam is injected in this chamber
through specially designed nozzles placed at regular distance, on the
peripheral wall. The axis of each jet is tangential to the cicumference of a
smaller, imaginary, concentric circle.
During operation, these jets generate a high speed vortex inside the chamber
and the materials fed through a separate venturi system, which creates a
partial vaccum to suck the material into this high velocity vortex. Strong
velocity gradients near the jet cause the suspended particles of the material
to collide with each other and reduce themselves by attrition and collision.
The jet fluid exits through an outlet at the centre of the chamber from top
and draws the micronized particles with it to the cyclone collector system.
Heavier oversized particles are held in the grinding chamber by centrifugal
force, until micronized to a desired size.
Parameters affecting fine grinding process in jet mill:
The design and operational parameters of fine grinding process in jet mill
affects the ground product in terms of its product fineness, particle size
distribution and the intensity of mechanochemical effect. The product
fineness and its particle size distribution are affected by feed rate, grinding
air flow rate, height of classification tube, angle of nozzles, types of grinding
fluids, amount of holdup, grinding pressure.
The parameters which affect the product fineness in a jet mill can be
classified as the geometrical parameters which is concerned with the design
of the mill and operational condition.
Geometrical parameter
Diameter of grinding chamber
Shape of nozzles
Number of nozzles

Operational condition
Solid feed rate
Grinding pressure
Classifier speed

Angle of nozzles

Types of grinding fluids

Particle Breakage Mechanism in Jet mill :

The breakage mechanism of particles in grinding mills is very much
dependent on its design and operating parameters. In jet mill, the main
breakage mechanism is destructive breakage due to impact and abrasion due
to attrition between particles. This phenomenon indicates that the breakage
echanism of particles is influenced by the types of grinding mechanism.
High grinding pressure (therefore, a higher jet velocity and greater grinding
energy) leads to destructive breakage, therefore the product will be less
block-shape and platelets but exhibiting sharp edges. If lower grinding
pressure is used, abrasion grinding mechanism will be more dominant
resulting in chipping of the particle edges.
Tasirin and Geldart (1999) found that coarse particles broke due to
destructive breakage rather than abrasion and the probability of coarser
particles chosen for breakage was higher than smaller particles. In general,
smaller particles were more difficult to break than larger ones because
smaller particles contained fewer faults, flaws or discontinuities.
Abrasion breakage mechanism in jet mill is dependent on the concentration
or amount of particles in the grinding chamber. The increase in the amount
of fines and creation of new surface area when the amount of holdup
increases, is the characteristics of abrasion breakage mechanism taking place
in jet mill (Mebtoul et al., 1996). Abrasion breakage mechanism is
characterized by formation of fines without noticeable change in mean
diameter of particles.