Quartz particles flotation using nano-micro bubbles

Introduction: Flotation is a physico-chemical separation process which has high performance for particles with size of 50-600 m for coal and 10-100 m for minerals. Flotation efficiency for particles out of this range decreased sharply. Nanobubbles which are mostly smaller than 1 m can be characterized by an inherently high ability of attachment, and a low probability of detachment due to their tiny size. Nanobubbles attach to hydrophobic surface, cover surface mineral, act like secondary collectors for minerals and lead to attach rapidly to big bubbles [1-3]. In this research, flotation of quartz particles in the presence and absence of nano-micro bubbles was studied.Material and methods: Flotation experiments were carried out in a Denver laboratory flotation machine with a 2 L cell. The representative pure quartz sample was used for flotation experiments. Dodecyl amine (collector, 50 g/t) and MIBC (frother, 22.4 ppm) were used in the flotation experiments. Hydrodynamic cavitation process was applied for producing nanobubbles using MIBC frother at the high static pressure of 0.3-0.35 kPa. Nanobubbles were prepared using water and a certain concentration of frother at pH 8.5. Results and conclusion: Results indicated that maximum recovery in the presence of nano-micro bubbles were obtained 98.9 % and the recovery of quartz particles increased up to 24% in the presence of nanobubbles comparing to the conventional flotation. According to the results, in the absence of nano bubbles, the flotation recovery decreased. In addition, in the best condition, the particles were suspended and became colloid with bubbles and thus the flotation response was increased.

کلیدواژه ها:

Flotation ، Nano-micro bubbles ، Quartz particle