Navigating Ball Mill Specifications for Theory-to-Practice Reproducibility in Mechanochemistry

Abstract

The rising prospects of mechanochemically assisted syntheses hold promise for both academia and industry, yet they face challenges in understanding and, therefore, anticipating respective reaction kinetics. Particularly, dependencies based on variations in milling equipment remain little understood and globally overlooked. This study aims to address this issue by identifying critical parameters through kinematic models, facilitating the reproducibility of mechanochemical reactions across the most prominent mills in laboratory settings, namely planetary and mixer mills. Through a series of selected experiments replicating major classes of organic, organometallic, transition metal-catalyzed, and inorganic reactions from literature, we rationalize the independence of kinematic parameters on reaction kinetics when the accumulated energy criterion is met. As a step forward and to facilitate the practicability of our findings, we provide a freely accessible online tool[dagger] that allows the calculation of respective energy parameters for different planetary and mixer mills. Our work advances the current understanding of mechanochemistry and lays the foundation for future rational exploration in this rapidly evolving field. Commonly reported parameters such as time, rpm, and ball mass are often insufficient to replicate mechanochemical syntheses accurately. By demonstrating that reaction outcomes are tied to the cumulative total energy, we can enhance the reproducibility of mechanochemical reactions across various laboratory mills, including planetary and mixer mills. To aid in this, we offer a free online calculator to compute and report all necessary parameters. image