Silicon nitride ceramic balls have high hardness, second only to diamond and cubic boron nitride. The wear of silicon nitride grinding balls in 24 hours is only one part per million. The grinding consumption of silicon nitride ceramic balls is very low, which reduces the wear of grinding media and the pollution of grinding materials, which is conducive to obtaining higher purity ultrafine powder.

Silicon nitride ceramic balls replace zirconia ceramic beads as grinding media, which can greatly improve the quality of high-tech powder products. As a grinding media, zirconia ceramic balls have the advantages of high flexural strength, high wear resistance, excellent thermal insulation properties, high toughness, etc. As ultra-fine grinding media, zirconia ceramic balls are an ideal product in grinding media and are used in powder preparation. It is widely used as grinding media in industry. However, zirconia ceramic balls have high toughness as grinding media due to the presence of stabilizers. This high toughness of zirconia ceramic balls is time-sensitive. For example, after a zirconia ceramic ball is left in the air for a period of time, it becomes unstable and becomes unstable. The performance will be severely reduced or even cracked. Moreover, at high temperatures, zirconia ceramic balls have no metastable phase and lose high toughness. Therefore, zirconia ceramic balls cannot be used at high temperatures or at room temperature for a long time. The two shortcomings of high temperature use and poor aging seriously restrict the development of zirconia ceramic balls as grinding media.

Silicon nitride ceramic balls are an upgraded product that replaces zirconia ceramic beads as grinding media. As soon as silicon nitride ceramic balls enter the field of powder industrial grinding applications, they are ready for use due to their extremely low wear rate and excellent mechanical properties. Attracting attention, although silicon nitride ceramic balls are not so widely used due to the cost and preparation process of silicon nitride ceramic balls, they are used as grinding media for high-tech powder products or high value-added powder products. In terms of requirements, silicon nitride ceramic balls are still an abrasive material with great potential.