World consumer markets for carbon/graphite materials are broad-based and diverse. Mined natural graphite and manufactured (synthetic) graphite, are essential industrial materials used in the production of steel, iron, aluminum, battery, powdered metallurgy, and refractory products such as bricks, tiles, furnace linings, crucibles, and in the automotive and heavy equipment clutch plates, transmission rings, bushings, bearings, brushes, gaskets, heat baffles, precision metal parts, fire-retardant fabrics, coatings, lubricants, lacquer, media dispersions, greases, forging lubes; and in electronics (semi-conductor/capacitor coatings), battery, glass/ceramics; conductive composites (resins, polymers, plastic, paper, rubber blends); agricultural (seed coatings, lubricating dry and wet sprays); medical devices, heart valves, hip/knee/ligament replacements; construction materials (conductive flooring, insulation, fire-retardant electrical packing materials, lightweight structural composites); nuclear (containment liners for reflectors and columns); fuel cell (bi-polar plates, compounds, dense coatings/sealants).
Graphite:
• Natural Graphite (naturally occurring/mined)
• Synthetic Graphite (thermally graphitized petroleum coke/tar/pitch)
• Secondary Market Synthetic Graphite (recycled machined graphite, crushed to granular, typically recycled electrodes)
• Amorphous Graphite (naturally occurring)
Milling graphite involves upstream (mine-site) extraction and crushing/milling systems, or, in the case of synthetic graphite, crushing/screening of electrode stock. Natural or Synthetic Graphite will ordinarily require intermediate, fine, and ultra-fine powder milling involving production combinations of ball mills, hammer and pin mills, and when going ultra-fine, then Jet Mills and Air Classifier Mills.
CMS designs and manufactures the leading graphite micronizing milling systems (typically 150 – 400 HP), which are capable of achieving product grinds of all standard graphite powder products down to +/-5 µm. CMS also offers mill systems for the production of battery-grade Spherical Graphite.
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