The paper presents the principles of a prototype dry pulverizer particularly suited for industrial applications together with performance tests demonstrating its advantages. The pulverizer offers considerable advantages when compared to commonly used comminution processes, especially in the fine and superfine milling of minerals. The originality of the pulverizer lies mainly in that it allows the variation of the ratio of the shear to the compression forces acting on a particle during its pulverization. The ratio is adjusted to the mechanical requirements of the material to be pulverized. Instead of a single roller or balls, the pulverizer employs several annular rings, thus allowing better grinding of the finer fractions of the original material. The adjustment of the operational conditions to the mechanical properties of the material to be pulverized and the increase of the "active" surface of the pulverizer are examined in terms of ratio of the work done by normal forces to the total work (due to normal and shear forces).