Fractal evaluation of particle size distributions of chromites in different comminution environments

Particle size distributions (PSDs) are often rendered as cumulative functions, either as number of particles larger than a certain diameter, or as mass smaller than a certain diameter. The fractional exponent of the number/mass-size power law has been interpreted as the fractal dimension of the distribution. An application of PSD in comminuted chromites by means of the fractal mass distribution is presented. The five types of chromite samples were subjected to four comminution events; jaw, cone, hammer crushing and ball milling. The PSDs generated by different comminution devices has been evaluated by mass-based fractal fragmentation theory and the fractal dimensions of fragmentation (DF), a value quantifying the intensity of fragmentation, have been obtained for each chromite ore. The results of the present study show that the particle size distributions of the comminuted chromites having different mineralogical characteristics are fractal in nature. Single and multifractal methods have been successfully applied to characterize particle size distributions (PSD) of chromite samples comminuted by different comminution devices. In general, depending on the energy events, the chromite ores having different mineralogical characteristics showed a general trend of PSDs, and hence, the ranges of DF for a specific device. It can be concluded that breakage mechanisms have more effective on fractal dimensions of chromite samples although the mineralogical properties and size of the chromite ores broken are also a factor.