Method for disintegrating mica flakes and apparatus used therefor
AssigneeHitachi Chemical Company, Ltd.
InventorsHideji Kuwajima, Hirofumi Mizoguchi, Juichi Sakurada, Takeyoshi Watanabe
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Mica flakes are disintegrated to mica scales having a diameter of 10 mm or less and a ratio of diameter/thickness of 100-1000 by using an apparatus and a method comprising bringing about coarse size reduction followed by size reduction of the mica flakes by high-pressure jets of water, if desired together with high-pressure jets of gas, separating mica scales from mica flakes by vertical classification followed by horizontal classification, and taking out the mica scales as a slurry while recycling nondisintegrated mica flakes to size reduction. The slurry of mica scales is used for making mica paper.
Claims7
A method for producing mica scales reduced in size from mica flakes which comprises bringing about coarse size reduction followed by size reduction of mica flakes by high-pressure jets of water, separating mica scales from mica flakes by vertical classification followed by horizontal classification, and taking out the mica scales as a slurry while recycling nondisintegrated mica flakes to size reduction.
An apparatus for the size reduction of mica flakes to produce mica scales comprising a coarse size reduction zone and a size reduction zone connected thereto, both zones installing nozzles for introducing high-pressure jets of water in order to disintegrate the mica flakes, a vertical classification zone wherein the mica flakes and mica scales moved from the size reduction zone are separated along an upward stream of water, a horizontal classification zone connected to the vertical classification zone wherein the mica scales are separated from the mica flakes along a horizontal stream of water, and a settling zone wherein nondisintegrated mica flakes settled from the horizontal classification zone are returned to the size reduction zone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.