Papers - Concentration - The Nature of Dispersed Mineral in Flotation Pulps (Mining Technology, March 1943)

It was noticed early by operators that high recoveries and flocculation of the sulphide minerals were closely correlated in agitation-froth flotation. Later, this readily visible flocculation was found almost invariably to be due to the binding together of the oiled sulphides by minute air bubbles, and is now known to be characteristic of pulps in which at least one of the mineral species is coated with an insoluble collecting oil. In 1930 it was reported1 that in differential flotation a correlation exists between Brownian movement of particles in the pulp and their nonfloatability, and that Brownian movement and dispersion are likewise correlated, whence it would appear to follow that dispersion of a mineral particle in a flotation pulp denotes a particle condition unfavorable to flotation. In 1934 it was postulated2 that Brownian movement, dispersion and nonfloatability all flow from the condition of the surface of the dispersed particles. It was also postulated at that time that the surfaces of dispersed particles are ionized, the ionized compound being a product of reaction between a component of the particle and a component of the pulp, of a mass solubility of the general order of a fraction of a milligram to I 5 to 20 mg. per liter. It was then further asserted, and has since been confirmed by Bankoff,3 that sulphides so conditioned with soluble collectors as to be floatable flocculate without the intervention of air bubbles as binding media. The present paper comprises an inquiry into the nature of the bound and counter ions in zinc sulphide dispersed by sodium arsenate. A part of its findings was mentioned in the 1934 paper above cited.= The tests show that: I. When powdered granular zinc sulphide is immersed in aqueous solutions of sodium arsenate, arsenate ion is abstracted from solution and anchored to the solid surface, while sulphate and lower sulphoxy ions are concurrently displaced therefrom in substantially stoichiometric quantities. 2. The ion counterbalancing the anchored arsenate ion is zinc. 3. Dispersion and Brownian movement of zinc sulphide are concurrently maxima at an arsenate-ion concentration lying between 0.01 and 0.001-molar sodium arsenate. 4. Any condition or reaction that tends. to remove the zinc arsenate coating from the zinc sulphide particles decreases dispersion and Brownian movement concurrently. Experimental Three samples of zinc sulphide were used. Lot I was C.P. zinc sulphide, washed well be~ond absence of chloride, as shown by test with silver ion. Lot 2 was prepared by precipitation from hydrochloric acid solution of arsenic-free zinc, and was washed as lot I. Lot 3 was prepared by heating a portion of lot 2 in absence of air at 1200° to r300°C. for one hour."