The Effect of Lubrication Agent in Fabrication of Recycled Steel Powder using Ball Milling from Machining Steel Chips

Abstract

A feasibility study for producing recycled steel powder from steel scrap by ball milling was carried out. Steel scrap from machining was used as a raw material and was milled using ball milling for 40 hours. It was found that during ball milling, steel scrap were laminated to each other, elongated by micro-forging of the falling balls, fragmented into small pieces of foil and finally formed into spherical powder. A mixed ball is more beneficial to the milling of steel scrap into the spherical powder due to the large impact energy during the falling of the ball. Intermediate stops during milling produced a finer spherical steel powder than non-stop milling for up to 40 hours due to cooling of the vial. A larger amount of lubricating agent reduces friction between the foil or the balls and vial wall, thus give less mi