Comparative Study on Improving the Ball Mill Process Parameters Influencing on the Synthesis of Ultrafine Silica Sand: A Taguchi Coupled Optimization Technique

Taguchi-based experimental design technique has been a major research area for making systematic approaches to understand the complex process of ball mill process parameters influencing on the synthesis of ultrafine silica sand monolayer degradation. To determine an optimal setting, Taguchi coupled optimization technique has been applied with a novel approach as there is no previous work focusing on the synthesis of ultrafine silica sand taking in account the ball milling process parameters and Taguchi coupled optimization techniques. The high-grade silica was milled in planetary ball mill and the selected samples were passed through washing, crushing, dehydrating, meshing and drying operations. The samples were analyzed using Malvern Instruments for particle size distribution. The experiments were conducted as per Taguchi's L9 orthogonal array. Process parameters were analyzed using the signal-to-noise ratio based on the-smaller-the-better approach. To minimize the effect of uncontrollable variables, The ANOVA results determined the significance of the influential controllable variables so that the variability in the response is small. Optimization results confirmed that the balls to powder weight ratio were the most influential process parameter. The optimum process parameters setting concluded that balls to powder weight ratio are 20:1, the optimum ball mill working capacity is 2 L while the optimum speed of the ball mill is 105 rpm. Using SEM characterization, the improved particles of silica sand presented a spherical shape with a cluster. Using TEM of different structures of the ultrafine silica sand containing asymmetrical characteristics of particles confirmed the solid form of the ultrafine silica sand.