Wet jet milling of Al2O3 slurries

A wet jet milling process was employed as a novel method to prepare ceramic slurries. The wet jet milling pulverized raw materials to primary particle size within a short time. The wet jet-milled slurries showed very low viscosity, as comparing to ball-milled slurries. Moreover, the viscosity of wet jet-milled slurries was stable for long times, whereas that of ball-milled slurries increased rapidly with increase in the time. Al2O3 particles after wet jet milling kept initial surface conditions, though Al2O3 particles after ball milling yielded more OH groups on the surface. The relative density of the green bodies prepared from the wet jet-milled slurries was about 65% or more without depending on the solid content of slurry. On the other hand, the relative density of the green bodies fabricated by the ball-milled slurries increased with the slurry solid content, and it reached more than 60% at 50 vol% of solid content.