Ball mill

Abstract: ‘‘Amorphous’’ Ni60Nb40 has been prepared by mechanical alloying of elemental nickel and niobium powders in a laboratory ball mill in controlled environments. X‐ray diffraction was used to follow the progress of the mechanical alloying which eventually produced ‘‘amorphous’’ diffraction patterns similar to those for liquid quenched amorphous Ni60Nb40. Crystallization behavior was measured by differential scanning calorimetry for the mechanically alloyed and liquid quenched material. The differences that were observed in this behavior, and in the products of crystallization, may be attributed to impurities (especially oxygen) introduced during mechanical alloying.

Abstract: Mechanical alloying (MA) is a powder metallurgy processing technique involving cold welding, fracturing, and rewelding of powder particles in a high-energy ball mill, and has now become an established commercial technique to produce oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) nickel- and iron-based materials. MA is also capable of synthesizing a variety of metastable phases, and in this respect, the capabilities of MA are similar to those of another important non-equilibrium processing technique, viz., rapid solidification processing (RSP). However, the “science” of MA is being investigated only during the past 10 years or so. The technique of mechanochemistry, on the other hand, has had a long history and the materials produced in this way have found a number of technological applications, e.g., in areas such as hydrogen storage materials, heaters, gas absorbers, fertilizers, catalysts, cosmetics, and waste management. The present paper discusses the basic mechanisms of formation of metastable phases (specifically supersaturated solid solutions and amorphous phases) by the technique of MA and these aspects are compared with those of RSP. Additionally, the variety of technological applications of mechanically alloyed products are highlighted.

Abstract: Synthesis of nanomaterials by a simple, low cost and in high yield has been a great challenge since the very early development of nanoscience. Various bottom and top down approaches have been developed so far, for the commercial production of nanomaterials. Among all top down approaches, high energy ball milling, has been widely exploited for the synthesis of various nanomaterials, nanograins, nanoalloy, nanocomposites and nano -quasicrystalline materials. Mechanical alloying techniques have been utilized to produce amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys as well as metal/non-metal nano- composite materials by milling and post annealing, of elemental or compound powders in an inert atmosphere. Mechanical alloying is a non-equilibrium processing technique in which different elemental powders are milled in an inert atmosphere to create one mixed powder with the same composition as the constituents. In high-energy ball milling, plastic deformation, cold-welding and fracture are predominant factors, in which the deformation leads to a change in particle shape, cold-welding leads to an increase in particle size and fracture leads to decrease in particle size resulting in the formation of fine dispersed alloying particles in the grain-refined soft matrix. By utilizing mechanical milling various kind of aluminium/ nickel/ mag- nesium/ copper based nanoalloys, wear resistant spray coatings, oxide and carbide strengthened aluminium alloys, and many other nanocomposites have been synthesized in very high yield. The mechanical milling has been utilized for the synthesis of nanomaterials either by milling and post annealing or by mechanical activation and then applying some other process on these activated materials. This review is a systematic view of the basic concept of mechanical milling, historical view and appli- cations of mechanical milling in the synthesis of various nanomaterials, nanosomposites, nnaocarbons and nano quasicrys- talline materials.