Investigation of particle size distribution of grinded amber by electropulse discharges in a liquid medium

The article presents the study results of electropulse grinding of amber in aqueous and alcoholic media at different amounts of supplied energy. Description of the electropulse grinding laboratory installation, the mechanism of the destruction process of amber particles and methods of statistical processing of experimental data are given. It was established that alcohol medium has a greater impact on the efficiency of crushing than water. Thus, under the same conditions of energy supply, in the aqueous medium the weighted average particle size of amber was 601:6±688:9 μm, and in an alcohol medium – 368:0±269:6 μm. In an aqueous medium, the particle size decreased to 1/13.6 of raw sample, and in an alcoholic medium to 1/22.3 of raw sample compared to the initial size of raw amber. We found that in the aqueous medium the ratio of large to small fractions is mainly the same with the coefficient of alignment of particles with a size of 1.09. In an alcoholic medium, this ratio significantly differs, with the coefficient of alignment of amber particles of a size of 1.67 with the amount of supplied energy of 125 kJ.