Minerals Beneficiation - Relationships Between Rheological and Flocculating Properties of Polymer Flocculants

The rheological properties of aqueous solutions of several commercial flocculants were investigated using a rotating coaxial cylinder viscometer. Similarities between the pH-apparent viscosity relationship and the flocculating properties of the reagents are discussed here. Synthetic neutral polymers and polyelectrolytes are used extensively as flocculants in mining and chemical engineering operations. The action of these reagents has been interpreted as adsorption of the polymer flocculant to the mineral surface, followed by the formation of physical polymer bridges between the particles.4,5 A consequence of the bridging model is that the efficiency of a polymer flocculant depends on the degree with which the polymer is adsorbed to the mineral surface, and the extent to which the polymer molecule forms a bridge between colliding particles. The length of the polymer molecule and its orientation at the mineral surface are important in the bridging mechanism since the further the polymer segments can protrude from the mineral surface the greater the probability may be of these segments contacting another mineral particle. Linke and Booth7 have shown that, for a silica suspension, both the settling rate at a given polymer addition and the maximum settling rate obtainable increase with increasing molecular weight. The analysis of silberbergl0 has