The study of grinding behavior characteristics on aluminum powders and carbon nano tubes (CNTs) has recently gained scientific interest due to their useful effect in enhancing advanced nano materials and components, which significantly improves the property of new mechatronics integrated materials and components. We performed a series of dry grinding experiments using a planetary ball mill to systematically investigate the grinding behavior during Al/CNTs nano composite fabrication. This study focused on a comparative study of the various experimental conditions at several variations of rotation speeds, grinding time and with and without CNTs. The results were monitored for the particle size distribution, median diameter, crystal structure from XRD pattern and particle morphology at a given grinding time. It was observed that pure aluminum powders agglomerated with low rotation speed and completely enhanced powder agglomeration. However, Al/CNTs composites were achieved at maximum experiment conditions (350 rpm, 60 min.) of this study by a mechanical alloy process for Al/CNTs mixed powders because the grinding behavior of Al/CNTs composite powder was affected by addition of CNTs. Indeed, the powder morphology and crystal size of the composite powders changed more by an increase of grinding time and rotation speed.

A formation of aluminum hydroxide by hydrolysis of nano and micro aluminum powder has been studied. The nano aluminum powder of 80 to 100 nm in diameter was fabricated by a pulsed wire evaporation (PWE) method. The micro powder was commercial product with more than in diameter. The hydroxide type and morphology depending on size of the aluminum powder were examined by several analyses such as XRD, TEM, and BET. The hydrolysis procedure of micro aluminum powder was different from that of nano aluminum powder. The nano aluminum powder after immersing in the water was transformed rapidly to a nano fibrous boehmite, accompanying with a remarkable temperature increase, and then further transformed slowly to a stable bayerite. However, the micro powder was changed to the stable bayerite slowly and directly. The formation of fibrous aluminum hydroxide from nano aluminum powder might be due to the fine cracks which were formed by hydrogen gas pressure on the surface hydroxide layer during hydrolysis. The nano powder with large specific surface area and small size reacted more actively and faster than the micro powder, and transformed to meta-stable hydroxide in relatively short reaction time. Therefore, the formation of fibrous boehmite is special characteristic of hydrolysis of nano aluminum powder.