Abstract
This work was conducted to study the operating characteristics of a grinding system designed to obtain fine rice husk ash powder. To find better utilizing of rice husk, a valuable by-product from rice production, once the rice husk was incinerated and the thermal energy was recovered from the furnace, the ash was fed and pulverized in the grinding system resulting a fine powder to be used as a supplementary adding material to the portland cement manufacturing . The rice husk ash grinding system consisted of a high speed centrifugal fan for the preliminary coarse milling and a dry-type stirred ball mill for the subsequent fine grinding . Total grinding time 9 5, 15, 30, 45 min), impeller speed (250, 500, 750 rpm) , and mixed ratio (4.8, 7.9, 14.9) were three operating factors examined for the performance of a stirred ball mill used for the fine grinding of ash. With the stirred ball mill used in this study, the minimum attianable mean diameter of rice husk ash powder appeared to be 2 ${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$. During the find grinding, the difference in specific surface area of powder showed an increase and the grinding energy efficiency decreased with the increase in total grinding time, impeller speed ,and mixed ratio. For the operating conditions employed , the resulting mean diameter of fine ash powder, specific energy input, and grinding energy efficiency were in the range of 1.79 --16.04${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, 0.072-5.226kWh/kg, an d1.11-12.15$m^2$/Wh, respectively. Grinding time of 30 min , impeller speed of 750 rpm, and mixed ratio of 4.8 were chosen as the best operating conditions of the stirred ball mill for fine grinding . At these conditions, mean particle diameter of the fine ash, grinding energy efficiency, grinding throughtput, and specific energy input were 2.73${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, 3.95$m^2$/Wh, 0.25kg/h, and 1.22kWh/kg, respectively.