Dual Drive Planetary Mill

There are many industrial fields today that require finely ground powder. The production of sub-micron size powder is receiving increased attention because of the increasing demand for structural ceramics, magnetic materials, electronic packing materials and metal-ceramic composites. At present, such fine powders may be generated using, for example, ball mills, stirred ball mills and vibration mills. Such mille are typically only capable of producing a powder having a minimum particle size of about 1 micron. This novel technology provides and novel mill for mixing and grinding materials and overcomes the limitations of previous methods.

Benefits
The state of the art uses a stationary gear meshing with a planet gear. The ratio of the speed mill shaft to gyration shaft is fixed and the direction is fixed by design. This invention uses two separate drives for the planetary mill. The first motor drive is connected to the mill shell shaft and the second motor drive is connected to the gyration arm shaft. By this arrangement, each shaft can be rotated at any desired speed and direction. This mill is useful in all commercial applications where powder production of size around one micron is needed. This planetary mill can be used to produce ultrafine powders in ceramic, electronic, waste, rubber, chemical, pigment, mineral and clay processing.

Stage of Development
A patent (US 6,086,242) has been issued from the US Patent and Trademark Office.
This technology is seeking partners for development-manufacturing-sales-etc of the working-final-etc product. It is available for developmental research support/licensing under either exclusive or non-exclusive terms.

Additional Info
*Rajamani, R. K., Ultrafine powder production in a planetary ball mill, Particulate Science and Technology, v 15, n 2, Apr-Jun, 1997, 126pp
*http://www.mines.utah.edu/~wmraj/

Inventor(s): Raj Rajamani, Ludovic Milin, Glade Howell

Type of Offer: Licensing



« More Material Science Patents

---