Cemented tungsten carbide balls (hereafter abbreviated as WC balls) are commonly applied in grinding of wasted tool steel for reuse owing to their extraordinary surface hardness (89.5 HRA) and high density (14.5 -14.9 g/cm(3)). In this study, grinding tests were conducted with WC balls on quartz ore to estimate comminution kinetics. Compared with steel balls, they provided high breakage rates, lower energyspecific breakage rates, and finer breakage distributions due to their high density. Simulations were conducted using an energy-based population balance model. The simulated results demonstrated that WC balls had higher throughput for coarse particles and lower energy efficiency for fine particles. Subsequently, a preliminary criterion for ball selection was established and indicated that WC balls could be substituted for steel balls to certain particle size ranges. (C) 2020 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.