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A powder is a dry, bulk
solid
Solid is one of the State of matter#Four fundamental states, four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and Plasma (physics), plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount o ...
composed of many very
fine particle
Particulates – also known as atmospheric aerosol particles, atmospheric particulate matter, particulate matter (PM) or suspended particulate matter (SPM) – are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspension (chemistry), suspen ...
s that may
flow freely when shaken or tilted. Powders are a special sub-class of
granular material
A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles characterized by a loss of energy whenever the particles interact (the most common example would be friction when grains collide). The constituents that compose gra ...
s, although the terms ''powder'' and ''
granular
Granularity (also called graininess), the condition of existing in granules or grains, refers to the extent to which a material or system is composed of distinguishable pieces. It can either refer to the extent to which a larger entity is subd ...
'' are sometimes used to distinguish separate classes of material. In particular, ''powders'' refer to those granular materials that have the finer
grain size
Grain size (or particle size) is the diameter of individual grains of sediment, or the lithified particles in clastic rocks. The term may also be applied to other granular materials. This is different from the crystallite size, which refer ...
s, and that therefore have a greater tendency to
form clumps when flowing. ''Granulars'' refers to the coarser granular materials that do not tend to form clumps except when wet.
Types
Many manufactured goods come in powder form, such as
flour
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...
,
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
, ground
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
,
powdered milk
Powdered milk, also called milk powder, dried milk, or dry milk, is a manufactured dairy product made by evaporating milk to dryness. One purpose of drying milk is to preserve it; milk powder has a far longer shelf life than liquid milk and do ...
, copy machine
toner
Toner is a powder mixture used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed text and images on paper, in general through a toner cartridge. Mostly granulated plastic, early mixtures only added carbon powder and iron oxide, however, ...
,
gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). ...
,
cosmetic
Cosmetic may refer to:
*Cosmetics, or make-up, substances to enhance the beauty of the human body, apart from simple cleaning
*Cosmetic, an adjective describing beauty, aesthetics, or appearance, especially concerning the human body
*Cosmetic, a t ...
powders, and some
pharmaceutical
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and re ...
s. In nature,
dust
Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian process), volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in homes ...
, fine
sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class of s ...
and
snow
Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes.
It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...
,
volcanic ash
Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcano, volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used t ...
, and the top layer of the lunar
regolith
Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
are also examples.
Because of their importance to industry, medicine and earth science, powders have been studied in great detail by
chemical engineer
In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...
s,
mechanical engineers
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
,
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...
s,
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
s,
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
s, and researchers in other disciplines.
Mechanical properties
Typically, a powder can be compacted or loosened into a vastly larger range of
bulk densities than can a coarser granular material. When deposited by sprinkling, a powder may be very light and fluffy. When vibrated or compressed it may become very dense and even lose its ability to flow. The bulk density of coarse sand, on the other hand, does not vary over an appreciable range.
The clumping behavior of a powder arises because of the molecular
Van der Waals force
In molecular physics, the van der Waals force is a distance-dependent interaction between atoms or molecules. Unlike ionic or covalent bonds, these attractions do not result from a chemical electronic bond; they are comparatively weak and th ...
that causes individual grains to cling to one another. This force is present not just in powders, but in sand and gravel, too. However, in such coarse granular materials the weight and the inertia of the individual grains are much larger than the very weak Van der Waals forces, and therefore the tiny clinging between grains does not have a dominant effect on the bulk behavior of the material. Only when the grains are very small and lightweight does the Van der Waals force become predominant, causing the material to clump like a powder. The cross-oversize between flow conditions and stick conditions can be determined by simple experimentation.
Many other powder behaviors are common to all granular materials. These include segregation, stratification, jamming and unjamming,
fragility
Fragility may refer to:
* A property of a solid, related to brittleness
* Fragility (glass physics), a concept to characterize viscous slow down during glass formation
* Fragility of financial systems, an idea developed by scholar Nassim Nicholas T ...
, loss of
kinetic energy
In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion.
It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its accele ...
,
friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:
*Dry friction is a force that opposes the relative lateral motion of t ...
al shearing,
compaction and
Reynolds' dilatancy
Dilatancy is the volume change observed in granular materials when they are subjected to shear deformations. This effect was first described scientifically by Osborne Reynolds in 1885/1886 Reynolds, O., "Experiments showing dilatancy, a property ...
.
Transport
Powders are transported in the atmosphere differently from a coarse granular material. For one thing, tiny particles have little inertia compared to the drag force of the gas that surrounds them, and so they tend to ''go with the flow'' instead of traveling in straight lines. For this reason, powders may be an inhalation hazard. Larger particles cannot weave through the body's defenses in the nose and sinus, but will strike and stick to the mucous membranes. The body then moves the mucous out of the body to expel the particles. The smaller particles on the other hand can travel all the way to the lungs from which they cannot be expelled. Serious and sometimes fatal diseases such as
silicosis
Silicosis is a form of occupational lung disease caused by inhalation of crystalline silica dust. It is marked by inflammation and scarring in the form of nodular lesions in the upper lobes of the lungs. It is a type of pneumoconiosis. Silicos ...
are a result from working with certain powders without adequate respiratory protection.
Also, if powder particles are sufficiently small, they may become
suspended in the atmosphere for a very long time. Random motion of the air molecules and
turbulence
In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between ...
provide upward forces that may counteract the downward force of gravity. Coarse granulars, on the other hand, are so heavy that they fall immediately back to the ground. Once disturbed, dust may form huge
dust storm
A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transporte ...
s that cross continents and oceans before settling back to the surface. This explains why there is relatively little hazardous dust in the natural environment. Once aloft, the dust is very likely to stay aloft until it meets water in the form of rain or a body of water. Then it sticks and is washed downstream to settle as
mud
A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...
deposits in a quiet lake or sea. When geological changes later re-expose these deposits to the atmosphere, they may have already cemented together to become
mudstone
Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...
, a type of rock. For comparison, the Moon has neither wind nor water, and so its
regolith
Regolith () is a blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It includes dust, broken rocks, and other related materials and is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestria ...
contains dust but no mudstone.
The
cohesive forces between the particles tend to resist their becoming airborne, and the motion of wind across the surface is less likely to disturb a low-lying dust particle than a larger sand grain that protrudes higher into the wind. Mechanical agitation such as vehicle traffic, digging or passing herds of animals is more effective than a steady wind at stirring up a powder.
The aerodynamic properties of powders are often used to transport them in industrial applications.
Pneumatic
Pneumatics (from Greek ‘wind, breath’) is a branch of engineering that makes use of gas or pressurized air.
Pneumatic systems used in Industrial sector, industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A central ...
conveying is the transport of powders or grains through a pipe by blowing gas. A gas fluidized bed is a container filled with a powder or granular substance that is ''fluffed up'' by blowing gas upwardly through it. This is used for
fluidized bed combustion
Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) is a combustion technology used to burn solid fuels.
In its most basic form, fuel particles are suspended in a hot, bubbling fluidity bed of ash and other particulate materials (sand, limestone etc.) through which ...
, chemically reacting the gas with the powder.
Some powders may be dustier than others. The tendency of a powder to generate particles in the air under a given energy input is called "
dustiness Dustiness is the tendency of particles to become airborne in response to a mechanical or aerodynamic stimulus. Dustiness is affected by the particle shape, size, and inherent electrostatic forces. Dustiness increases the risk of inhalation exposur ...
". It is an important powder property which is relevant to powder aerosolization process. It also has indications for human exposure to aerosolized particles and associated health risks (via skin contacts or inhalation) at workplaces. Various dustiness testing methods have been established in research laboratories, in order to predict powder behaviors during aerosolization.
These methods (laboratory setups) allow application of a wide range of energy inputs to powdered materials, which simulates different real-life scenarios.
Explosion risk
Many common powders made in industry are combustible; particularly metals or organic materials such as
flour
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...
. Since powders have a very high surface area, they can combust with explosive force once ignited. Facilities such as flour mills can be vulnerable to such explosions without proper dust mitigation efforts.
Some metals become especially dangerous in powdered form, notably
titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resistant to corrosion in ...
.
Comparison with other substances
A
paste or
gel
A gel is a semi-solid that can have properties ranging from soft and weak to hard and tough. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute cross-linked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state, although the liquid phase may still dif ...
might become a powder after it has been thoroughly dried, but is not considered a powder when it is wet because it does not flow freely. Substances like dried
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
, although dry bulk solids composed of very fine particles, are not powders unless they are crushed because they have too much
cohesion between the grains, and therefore they do not flow freely like a powder. A
liquid
A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...
flows differently than a powder, because a liquid cannot resist any shear stress and therefore it cannot reside at a tilted angle without flowing (that is, it has zero ''
angle of repose
The angle of repose, or critical angle of repose, of a granular material is the steepest angle of descent or dip relative to the horizontal plane to which a material can be piled without slumping. At this angle, the material on the slope fac ...
.'') A powder on the other hand is a solid, not a liquid, because it may support
shear stress
Shear stress, often denoted by (Greek: tau), is the component of stress coplanar with a material cross section. It arises from the shear force, the component of force vector parallel to the material cross section. ''Normal stress'', on the ot ...
es and therefore may display an angle of repose.
See also
*
Fragile matter In materials science, fragile matter is a granular material that is jammed solid. Everyday examples include beans getting stuck in a hopper in a whole food shop, or milk powder getting jammed in an upside-down bottle. The term was coined by phys ...
*
Granular material
A granular material is a conglomeration of discrete solid, macroscopic particles characterized by a loss of energy whenever the particles interact (the most common example would be friction when grains collide). The constituents that compose gra ...
*
Liquefaction
In materials science, liquefaction is a process that generates a liquid from a solid or a gas or that generates a non-liquid phase which behaves in accordance with fluid dynamics.
It occurs both naturally and artificially. As an example of the ...
*
Grain size
Grain size (or particle size) is the diameter of individual grains of sediment, or the lithified particles in clastic rocks. The term may also be applied to other granular materials. This is different from the crystallite size, which refer ...
*
Paste (rheology)
In physics, a paste is a substance that behaves as a solid until a sufficiently large load or stress is applied, at which point it flows like a fluid. In rheological terms, a paste is an example of a Bingham plastic fluid.
Pastes typically consi ...
*
Powder mixture A powder is an assembly of dry particles dispersed in air. If two different powders are mixed perfectly, theoretically, three types of powder mixtures can be obtained: the random mixture, the ordered mixture or the interactive mixture.
Different p ...
References
* Duran, J., Reisinger A., Sands, Powders, and Grains: An Introduction to the Physics of Granular Materials. November 1999, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., New York, .
*Rodhes, M (editor),Principles of powder technology, John Wiley & Sons, 1997
*Fayed, M.E., Otten L. (editor), Handbook of powder science & technology, second edition, Chapman & Hall,
*
Bagnold, R.A., ''Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes'', First Springer edition, 1971, .
Fundamentals of Particle Technology – free book
External links
{{Authority control
Granularity of materials
Dosage forms