Ball Mill Grinders

Pulva Corporation produces industrial-grade size-reduction equipment compatible with various types of materials used across industries. Request a quote to customize a ball mill grinder for your application. 

Ball Mill Drums for Size Reduction

Businesses across industries work with materials that come in large chunks or frequently clump together. Ball mill drums offer an efficient and inexpensive way to grind materials down to a more usable size, often as fine as 25-75 microns. Both continuous and batch style ball mills use centrifugal force, gravity and hard media to break up industrial materials into fine pieces or powder. Ball milling systems grind dry material and wet slurry alike. 

Each Pulva ball mill features a powerful motor that drives a gear system and causes the barrel to spin at 30-40 rotations per minute. The barrel features an inlet valve that accepts the material you want to grind and a discharge valve that expels it.

As the system rotates, hard media inside the barrel ascends the interior walls due to centrifugal force. The media collapses when it reaches a height that the gravitational force acting on it overpowers the centrifugal force driving its ascent. 

When the media collapses, it collides with the material that feeds into the barrel through the inlet valve. After a predetermined run time, batch mills are positioned and discharged through an exit valve or door. For continuous mills, A grate on the discharge valve controls material output by allowing the material to pass through after reducing it to the ideal size.  The grate also ensures that the media remains inside the ball mill.

Our Ball Mill Grinders 

Pulva develops ball drum mills for commercial applications. These ball mills are ideal for large materials. 

Each system features balls that crush the material you wish to grind into the ideal size. The balls are harder than the material you wish to grind to prevent contamination from pieces chipping off. Ball mill media can be ceramic, hardened or chrome plated steel or stainless steel. The ball material and diameter is a function of your material and desired output fineness. The inside of a ball milling machine features either rubber or metal plates. 

Our ball mill grinders function as single-state circuits or integrate into other equipment to form multi-stage circuits. Your facility can implement a Pulva grinder as the primary or secondary unit in any milling system. These grinders can also form closed or open circuits. 

Pebble Mill Grinders

Pebble mill grinders feature small stones that move inside the rotating barrel to break up industrial materials. Each pebble ranges from ¼-1 inch in size. Pebble mill grinders are ideal for grinding materials into fine powders. The smaller size of the pebbles compared to other media like steel balls allows these systems to reduce the size of small materials. Often smaller than 45 microns.

Ceramic Lined Mill Grinders

We offer ball and pebble mill grinders with the option for ceramic interior lining to enable greater efficiency. The ceramic lining comprises aluminum oxide brick, a hard material that increases the system's grinding strength. With a Mohs scale rating of nine, the ceramic lining is hard enough to withstand collisions with any industrial material. 

Ball and Pebble Mill Grinder Applications 

Ball, pebble and ceramic lined mill grinders are applicable in numerous industrial settings. Our engineers design unique systems for businesses in industries or using materials and processes such as: 

• Food processing
• Powder coating
• Plastics
• Carbon black
• Fertilizers
• Recycling
• Spices
• Cosmetics
• Pharmaceuticals
• Colored pigments
• Cannabis 

Epworth by Pulva Ball Mill Features

The Epworth ball mill is a cylindrical container with journals at it's axis. The cylinder is mounted horizontally on journal bearings partially filled with grinding media (pebbles, ceramic balls or rods, or metallic balls). The product to be ground is added and the mill to lift the media charge to one side of the cylinder and cause the media to roll, slide and tumble back down to the lower side.

To prevent slippage of the media charge inside the mill, baffles or "lifter bars" are attached to the mill cylinder which assist the lifting action of the mill. These bars are made of abrasion resisting alloy steel in steel ball mills or are formed by ceramic bricks in ceramic lined mills.

Pigment particles in the mill base (product) are caught between the tumbling media and are subjected to both impact and intense shear action which causes the required dispersion effect.

Pebble Mill Linings: To eliminate metal contamination, all our mill sizes can be furnished with interior linings of high density ceramic or porcelain brick installed by craftsmen.



Dry Grinding: Mills for dry grinding have "dustless" discharge housings of generous size for easy loading, rapid product removal and clean environment.

Process time can be cut to 50% using systems for automated feed and discharge of liquid products.

Automated Process: Process time can be cut to 50% using systems for automated feed and discharge of liquid products.

Lubricating Systems: Epworth automatic lube systems extend gear life indefinitely, saving thousands of dollars in repair and down time. Oil or grease systems available.

Vibration Isolators and Sound Control: Spring type isolators eliminate mill vibration from the building structure. They are especially useful on mills larger than 5' in diameter located on floors above ground floor. Epworth can furnish systems for vibration and sound control.

Positioning Drives: A small electric motor and speed reducer coupled to the main drive rotates the mill cylinder at 1 rpm for charging, discharging and sample collection. This eliminates jogging the main drive, extending its life and reducing electrical demand. Recommended for Epworth mills having main drives above 100 hp.

Continuous Mills: Epworth continuous feed and discharge mills have large diameter trunnions containing helical flites for maximum efficiency in conducting product to and from the ball mill. Conveying equipment is designed to meet individual process needs.

Holding Brakes: Secure the mill in position for charging and discharging. Easily added to all Epworth mills.

Sub Pedestals: Fabricated from structural steel. Elevate Epworth mills to any desired height for easy product handling.

Electrical Components: Highest quality and design. Installed by Epworth trained specialists. Frequently installed components are: Motor Starters and Disconnects; Mill Control Stations; Revolution Counters; Timers; Speed Switches; Temperature Control Devices; Amp meters and Load Indicators; Interlock and Limit Switches; Frequency Converters.