Custom Milling & Consulting LLC, headquartered in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania USA, is a global leader in the manufacture of horizontal milling machines, basket mills, planetary mixers and other equipment for mixing, blending, compounding and particle size reduction, and provides components, services and technologies that are essential for meeting today’s manufacturing challenges.

Selecting the right horizontal media mill for a wet-grinding process is not always simple. Whether you are manufacturing pigmented inks, technical ceramics, coatings, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals or nano-scale high-tech products, it is important to consider the capital equipment cost, operating cost and milling performance. In many circumstances, horizontal media mills are the ideal choice when your operation requires a closed system and a finer grind with smaller media.

A horizontal mill is generally made up of a horizontal tubular grinding chamber, in the center of which is an agitator shaft with agitator disks. Energy is transferred from the disk to the fluid in the mill and the product is sheared by the surface of the media rather than by the disks. When compared to vertical mills, there is little physical attrition. Although a horizontally oriented vessel requires more floor space, there are few height problems, and all of the apparatus is readily accessible.

Horizontal media mills allow for the use of smaller, denser media for tougher dispersion and grinding applications. In general, gravity, media flotation and abrasion prevent vertical mills from being loaded with as much media as horizontal mills. Since the media is evenly distributed throughout the horizontal mill chamber, fluidization is less of an issue.  Additional milling equipment such as submersion-type basket mills provides a convenient method for handling a wider variety of products and media types.

Some advantages of horizontal media mills in wet milling include:

  • Highly efficient use of small amounts of media
  • Media is distributed evenly throughout the vessel
  • Media can be as small as .25 mm and as large as 2 mm
  • Greater yield with little product loss
  • Maximum color strength and gloss durability
  • As much as 300% reduction in process time
  • 5% reduction in raw material costs
  • Minimal contamination, clean-up, and solvent loss
  • Resists abrasion
  • Relatively low operation, control and maintenance requirements

The ability to produce smaller particle sizes with horizontal milling can result in additional benefits. Some materials exhibit dramatically changed physical properties when they are reduced to nanoparticles. For example, organic pigments, when processed to sub-micron sizes, offer greater color strength than those produced by conventional grinding to one or two microns. This allows the client to use less pigment in an ink, paint, or dye, thereby reducing production costs.

CMC offers 25 years of expertise with grinding, milling, micronization, emulsification, and agglomeration. Our analytical lab facilities are highly sophisticated and equipped with leading edge technology for quantitative and qualitative assessments. We also provide toll processing, or toll manufacturing, services for the automotive, agricultural, pharmaceutical, ceramics, paper coating, power and electronics, specialty chemical and various other industries.

Custom Milling and Consulting LLC, offers in-house, hands-on and classroom style training on milling equipment, as well as troubleshooting, spare parts and other services that will provide profitable solutions to common production problems.

Contact us today to learn more about our  state-of-the-art horizontal milling equipment, replacement parts, toll manufacturing and other services by calling (610) 926-0984 or email us at sales@cmcmilling.com.