The majority of industrial abrasives which are used in manufacturing processes are made from minerals (hard ones). These are used to then shape or provide a certain kind of finish to an item through rubbing against it. As the abrasives rub against the item they begin to wear the surface away. Sometimes the surface will have a smooth reflective finish and other times it will be somewhat rougher providing a satin, beaded or matte finish to it instead.



Today abrasives are used in a number of different industries and the actual physical and chemical composition of them will vary from one industry to the next. But although most abrasives will be used as a way of polishing the surface of a particular object they are also used to buff, grind, hone, drill, sharpen, sand or cut into them as well.

As mentioned previously most industrial abrasives today are made from hard minerals that have achieved a rating of seven or above on the Mohs scale. This scale is used as a way of testing and classifying just how hard a mineral is. Whilst there are other abrasives used for industrial purposes today which are made from synthetic stones.

These synthetic stones often have both the physical and chemical characteristics that you would find in minerals which occur naturally. However, they are not able to be classified as minerals as they have not actually been constructed naturally.

Of all the types of abrasives used for industrial purposes today diamond is the most commonly used. As well as being made naturally this particular abrasive material can also be produced synthetically as well. Most of the diamonds that will be dug from the ground have been made from corundum, whilst those that have been produced by man will have been made using bauxite.

Diamonds are one of the hardest minerals to be found naturally on this planet and yet there are plenty of much softer ones being used as an abrasive material. Calcium carbonate is just one such soft mineral and is often used in toothpaste to act as a polishing agent. It is the small grains of calcium carbonate in the toothpaste which help to make a person's teeth look whiter.

How effective an industrial abrasive is will depend upon a number of different factors. The actual size of each grain (grit) that is used in abrasive methods varies from only 2mm, which is the large size grain you can get down to a size of just 40 micrometers. In order to get the right size of grain the minerals being used need to be crushed and will have rough edges that end in points. Although this reduces the amount of surface that they come into contact with it allows more localized pressure to be placed on it.

When using industrial abrasives the force that is applied on the grains that make it up will cause parts of the item being worked on to break away. As this happens the abrasive actually begins to become much smoother and this also causes some of the grains contained within it to come loose and eventually over time it will need to be replaced.