Processing of aluminum flake powder via high energy ball milling under different conditions reaching to aluminum nanoparticles

Abstract

The wet ball milling process has been employed to produce aluminum nanoparticles via processing of aluminum flake powder with average particle size about 20 μm at which different three solvents were used as milling solvents under ambient conditions without injection of inert gas. Those solvents were kerosene, 1,4 dioxane and 2-ethyl-hexanol. The milling process was achieved at different milling speeds, such were 300, 400, and 500 rpm. The different characteristics of the fabricated aluminum powder were investigated via XRD, EDX, SEM and TEM investigations. The different three solvents successfully contributed to reduce the particle size of aluminum flake powder down to ~ 860, 285 and 235 nm after 50 hours with kerosene, 1,4 dioxane and 2-ethyl-hexanol respectively. That smaller particle size was combined with high percent of aluminum content and low contamination level. On the other hand, the wet ball milling was employed to prepare aluminum nanoparticles using kerosene as milling solvent under the injection of argon gas with longer milling time which was 60 hours. The average particle size of the sample prepared under argon was about 50- 80 nm with less amount of aluminum oxide.