Laboratory Mills

What are Laboratory Mills?

Laboratory mills are unit operations designed to break solid materials into smaller particles. Laboratory mills use particle size reduction to homogenize or grind dry, wet, soft, hard, elastic, fibrous, and brittle materials.

Laboratory mills are utilized in a wide range of scientific areas, including food analysis, life science, materials testing, chemistry, and pharmaceuticals.

Hammer, disk, planetary ball, mortar, cutting mills, and rotor are available for achieving coarse, mid-range, and fine results, all the way down to the Nano range, less than 0.1μm.

There are also types of laboratory mills called freezer mills or cryogenic mills that freeze a material before reducing its particle size.

How Laboratory Mills Work

Laboratory mills utilize the mechanically generated force for pulverizing non-homogenous batch samples into smaller, homogenous, representative samples for quality control and analytical testing.

Their components include a grinding element like a cutting blade or beater housed within a disposable plastic or stainless steel milling chamber. Connection is made from the grinding element to a high-speed motor regulated by a digital controller or timer.

Considerations When Choosing a Laboratory Mill

When opting for a laboratory mill, speed, power, and cleanability are important parameters that must be considered. However, it is also important to bear in mind the equipment's throughput, yield, reproducibility, and, if necessary, the option of a cooling system.

Types of Laboratory Mills

The types of laboratory mills include:

Hammer Mills

These lab mills utilize a high-speed rotating steel hammer to grind the particles, and they have a sieve in the periphery that serves as a passage for the outflow of the sample from the grinding chamber.

Through the selection of various sieves, the distribution of the particle size in the sample can be varied. The hammer mill is typically used to produce a homogenous and fine sample.

The hammer mill can grind up to 300-gram samples, which is the amount requested for the falling number test.

Because of the heat developed in the grinding operation and the high airflow through the grinding chamber, the hammer mill is unsuitable for determining grain moisture.

Disc Mills

This type of mill utilizes one rotating and one stationary metal disc with teeth for grinding the sample. Its main application is the determination of grain moisture due to its ability to grind grain without the loss of moisture.

Varying the particle size from the mill can be done by adjusting the distance between the rotating and the stationary disc. There are also various types of discs to select.

Mortar Grinder Mill

A mortar grinder mill is a powerful grinder laboratory mill capable of ensuring homogenous sample preparation.

Samples can be added through two Plexiglas windows. The unit can be operated via an on/off switch, or it can be done through its built-in digital timer, with longer times giving results of finer particles.

There are five grinding sets to select from, which must be harder than the sample: corundum, porcelain, chrome steel, agate, and stainless steel.

Furthermore, this type of lab mill consists of a safety switch and an overload switch to ensure safe and accurate operation. The pestle, mortar, and scraper can be easily cleaned, minimizing sample-to-sample contamination.

Ball Mill

This lab mill is an affordable mill that can be utilized in the preparation of samples with minimal loss. The unit's design offers quiet performance and reduced vibration, which in turn increases the comfort of the user and safety.

Applications and Benefits of Laboratory Mills

The applications and benefits of laboratory mills include:

Applications of Laboratory Mills

Laboratory Mills are mostly used in the following fields:

• Biology
• Chemistry
• Microbiology
• Pharmacology
• Physics
• Zoology
• Agronomy
• Medical science
• Pharmacy

Benefits of Laboratory Mills

• They provide high sample homogeneity – they improve the repeatability as well as the accuracy of analytical results
• They have a robust design-they exhibit excellent durability as well as a low cost of ownership
• They are suitable for oilseeds, grains, and more. They are flexible for grinding many different types of samples.