A disc mill, is a type of crusher

Crusher

A crusher is a machine designed to reduce large rocks into smaller rocks, gravel, or rock dust. Crushers may be used to reduce the size, or change the form, of waste materials so they can be more easily disposed of or recycled, or to reduce the size of a solid mix of raw materials , so that pieces...

 that can be used to grind, cut, shear, shred, fiberize, pulverize, granulate, crack, rub, curl, fluff, twist, hull, blend, or refine. It works in a similar manner to the ancient Buhrstone mill in that the feedstock is fed between opposing discs or plates. The discs may be grooved, serrated, or spiked.

Applications

Typical applications for a single-disc mill are all three stages of the wet milling of field corn

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

, manufacture of peanut butter

Peanut butter

Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanuts, popular in North America, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and parts of Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia. It is mainly used as a sandwich spread, sometimes in combination as in the peanut butter and jelly...

, processing nut shells, ammonium nitrate, urea

Urea

Urea or carbamide is an organic compound with the chemical formula CO2. The molecule has two —NH2 groups joined by a carbonyl functional group....

, producing chemical slurries and recycled paper slurries, and grinding chromium

Chromium

Chromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...

 metal.

Double-disc mills are typically used for alloy powders, aluminum chips, bark

Bark

Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...

, barley, borax

Borax

Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.Borax has a wide variety of uses...

, brake lining scrap, brass

Brass

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...

 chips, sodium hydroxide, chemical salts, coconut

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

 shells, copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 powder, cork

Cork (material)

Cork is an impermeable, buoyant material, a prime-subset of bark tissue that is harvested for commercial use primarily from Quercus suber , which is endemic to southwest Europe and northwest Africa...

, cottonseed hulls, pharmaceuticals, feathers, hops

Hops

Hops are the female flower clusters , of a hop species, Humulus lupulus. They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine...

, leather

Leather

Leather is a durable and flexible material created via the tanning of putrescible animal rawhide and skin, primarily cattlehide. It can be produced through different manufacturing processes, ranging from cottage industry to heavy industry.-Forms:...

, oilseed cakes, phosphates, rice, rosin

Rosin

.Rosin, also called colophony or Greek pitch , is a solid form of resin obtained from pines and some other plants, mostly conifers, produced by heating fresh liquid resin to vaporize the volatile liquid terpene components. It is semi-transparent and varies in color from yellow to black...

, sawdust

Sawdust

Sawdust is a by-product of cutting lumber with a saw, composed of fine particles of wood. It can present a hazard in manufacturing industries, especially in terms of its flammability....

, and seeds

SEEDS

SEEDS is a voluntary organisation registered under the Societies Act of India....

.

Disc mills are relatively expensive to run and maintain, and are not used where ball mill

Ball mill

A ball mill is a type of grinder used to grind materials into extremely fine powder for use in mineral dressing processes, paints, pyrotechnics, and ceramics.-Description:...

s or hammermill

Hammermill

A hammermill is a machine whose purpose is to shred or crush aggregate material into smaller pieces. These machines have many sorts of applications in many industries, including:*Ethanol plants...

s produce the desired results at a lower cost.

Mechanism

Substances are crushed between the edge of a thick, spinning disk and something else. Some mills cover the edge of the disk in blades to chop up incoming matter rather than crush it.

Example disc mills

• U.S. Patent 178564, 1876