The best cellular glass is produced with the powder method. A fine glass powder is produced and a foaming agent is mixed with the glass, the resulting powder is allowed to sinter with incorporation of the foaming agent and further foamed by increasing the temperature. It is not a surprise that there could be a relation between the obtained cell structure and the way the glass was ground and the foaming agent mixed.

In that perspective, we advice to start with an introduction on Wikipedia, a fantastic site. The software, which drives Wikipedia is open source and a very good tool to create your own internal company documentation system under Linux.

But the more interested reader will have fun with a paper, which demonstrates a lot of practical issues with as for example Steatite grinding media. The paper is concise and is also a good introduction to the way the glass is ground in ball mills and other instruments.

The more academic reader will find this text book very enjoyable. It gives  already a good trial to describe the kinetics of the grinding and gives a calculation of the absorbed power of a ball mill.

The reader, who can find the time and energy to absorb the above is however not ready to select the right grinding tool for his foaming process. Indeed, much more equipment than ball mills were developed during the last years and some of them have to be incorporated in the glass foaming plants.