Research Disclosure no longer supports Internet Explorer

STIRRED GRINDING MILL 5 ABSTRACT The disclosure relates to a stirred grinding mill comprising a mill body defining an internal cavity of a grinding chamber with a longitudinal extension arranged in a vertical direction. The stirred grinding mill has at least one stirring assembly arranged within the grinding chamber for rotating therein, and at least one motor drive for driving the stirring assembly, wherein the stirred grinding mill further comprises air purge means configured to feed forced air purge into the grinding chamber. 10 (Figure 4) 1 STIRRED GRINDING MILL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The invention relates to improvements in stirred mills for grinding e.g. 5 mineral ore particles. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION A stirred mill, also known as attritor mill, is a type of mill used for grinding and mixing materials such as chemicals, ores, pyrotechnics, paints, and ceramics. It consists of a vertical vessel with a central shaft and impellers 10 that stir the media in a specific pattern. Stirred bead grinding mills are typically used in mineral processing to grind mineral ore particles into smaller sized particles to facilitate further downstream processing, such as separation of the valuable mineral particles from unwanted gangue. For example, mineral ore particles in the range of 15 about 30µm to 4000µm in diameter may be ground down to particles of 5 to 100 µm in diameter. This process is commonly known as fine and ultra-fine grinding. A stirred bead grinding mill typically has a stationary mill body or shell and an internal drive shaft. The shell and the drive shaft can be arranged 20 vertically in the mill; this kind of mill is also known as a tower mill. The drive shaft has a plurality of stirring elements, such as rotor disks or rotors, so that rotation of the drive shaft also rotates the stirring elements, which in turn stirs a suitable grinding media, and the mineral ore particles, in the form of a feed slurry, passes through this stirred bed of media. The resulting stirring action 25 causes the mineral ore particles to be ground into smaller sized particles. In other words, in contrast to tumbling mills such as ball mills where motion is imparted to the charge via the rotation of the mill shell, in tower and stirred mills motion is imparted to the charge by the movement of an internal stirrer while the shell remains stationary. 30 Exemplary stirred bead grinding mills are known from WO 2017/017315 A1 and WO 2018/138405 A1. A challenge with stirred grinding mills arranged vertically is the large power consumption as the slurry holding the grinding media, particles for 2 grinding and slurrying fluid, e.g. water has a high density. A further challenge is the high startup torque and operating torque. Thus, there is a need to lower the power consumption. There is also a need to lower the torque. 5 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION It is the object underlying the present invention to provide a stirred grinding mill requiring less power consumption. This object is achieved by means of a stirred grinding mill comprising a mill body defining an internal cavity of a grinding chamber with ...