Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Agate crucible vs Ball mill

shaft - 15-8-2016 at 00:42

Is it possible to grind a powder in an Agate crucible to a particle size that might compare to what you might get from a ball mill?

My question relates directly to what a compounding chemist told me.

They said, they don't always need to put a medication into a solvent because their ball mill will create a particle size that is small enough to pass through the epidermis along with the carrier.

TheMrbunGee - 15-8-2016 at 02:34

Quote: Originally posted by shaft  
Is it possible to grind a powder in an Agate crucible to a particle size that might compare to what you might get from a ball mill?


I think you can get smaller in Agate crucible, only thing that limits smaller size is that you have to use Agate crucible with your hands while you can leave ball mill on for weeks and crush a really fine powder.


Dan Vizine - 15-8-2016 at 09:30

It also depends considerably on the cmpd. being ground.

Agate crucibles are quite expensive. Personally, I'd always use a ball mill if the size was appropriate. Of course, you need high quality grinding media and its noisy. But you can let it run as long as you need, producing very small particle sizes.