Practical strategy to produce ultrafine ceramic glaze: Introducing a polycarboxylate grinding aid to the grinding process

In this work, a polycarboxylate comb-like polymer was used as grinding aid for ceramic slurry, and the effect of addition of this grinding aid on ceramic process property was highlighted. The grinding efficiency of the polycarboxylate grinding aid (PG) in terms of the particle size distribution and specific surface of unit volume of the ceramic slurry being ground were investigated. Consequently, the PG that was synthesized via free radical polymerization under the condition of an APEG/AA/MA molar ratio of 0.3:1:1, an initiator dosage of 5 wt%, and a reaction time of 6 h at 90 °C, provided better grinding efficiency than those of the triethanolamine and other commercial grinding aids. Specifically, with a dosage of 0.21% and 2 h of grinding, the d 97 and d 50 of ceramic slurry decreased from 13.956 μm and 2.043 µm to 3.739 µm and 0.561 µm, respectively. The cumulative distribution, frequency distribution and SEM results exhibited a uniform particle size distribution for ceramic ground with PG-C. Furthermore, the sintering experiment indicated that a lower processing temperature was capable of producing ultrafine ceramic. These improvements indicated the potential application of the PG as an efficiency ceramic grinding aid, which further facilitating the preparation of uniform ultrafine slurry by a sand mill.