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By Martin Rudolph

"Flotation is without a doubt one of the major processes for the separation of fine minerals and it has been applied for more than a century. A key task of a successful flotation separation is to find the proper chemical treatment to selectively hydrophobize and thus float a certain mineral phase using molecules or ions referred to as collectors, depressants, regulators and frothers. Commonly floatability is determined by microflotation tests using the Hallimond tube with pure mineral phases. This method however requires the pure mineral phase which is very often not even taken from the same deposit which is going to be processed. In this paper we present a new approach to in-situ determine and even map the floatability of finely disseminated mineral phases within cross-sections of an ore. It is based on measuring hydrophobic effects using colloidal probe atomic force microscopy with a hydrophobic polystyrene probe based on force spectroscopy with a lateral resolution of only a few nanometers. Coupled confocal Raman spectroscopy on the same locality enables the identification of the mineral phase. We present the working principles of the method and show which signals in the force spectra characteristic for hydrophobic interactions can be used to define floatability and which can then be mapped as single quantities, e.g. jump-into-contact events due to nanobubble occurrence or parameters of the long range interaction curves most probably due to capillary effects. A finely grained silicate ore containing the valuable rare earth mineral eudialyte from southern Sweden as well as pure samples of magnetite are presented as substrates to demonstrate the capability of this new approach. This method will not only help to find the proper flotation chemistry but it can furthermore help in researching and unravelling problems of floatability within similar mineral phases."

Jan 1, 2014

By Muammer Kaya, Sait Kursunoglu

"Energy is the major concern for society. It is expected that developing country economies and populations will grow and consume more energy. Interest in nuclear power is rising, while the world looks for non-depletable energy source that will not contribute to global warming. However, it still has concerns of nuclear proliferation, radioactive waste and safety. It is necessary to overcome these concerns if nuclear energy is expanded to developing countries. Thorium (Th) utilization as nuclear fuel will be an opening key of these difficulties because Th produces less Plutonium (Pu) and less radioactive waste with enhanced safety. Research into the use of Th as a nuclear fuel has been taking place over forty years, through with much less intensity than that for uranium (U) or U-Pu fuels. Nuclear industry is currently using only 0.7% of the available energy from mined U. With huge resources of Th and relatively little U, Turkey has made utilization of Th for large-scale energy production a major goal in its nuclear power programme. Thorium fuel is plentiful and inexpensive. Energy is major concern for developing Turkish society. Turkey, today exports more than 70% of its energy as fossil fuels. In the last 50 years, Turks are skeptical, anxious and indecisive about having nuclear energy for electricity production. In the last 10 years, Thorium is brought into Turkish government’s attention and national discussion as a new, safe, clean, affordable, CO2-free, alternative, strategic and domestic nuclear energy fuel. Turkey recently contacted four VVER-1200 type Russian Nuclear Power Reactors using U as a fuel in Akkuyu (Rosatom) and another four units will be established in Sinop in the next decade by Japan (Mitsubishi-Westinghouse). Turkish nuclear programme must envisage use of domestic Th as a fertile material. This paper briefly reviews the developments of Th-fuel cycle for nuclear energy from global and Turkish perspectives. Previous Th reserve development and recovery studies from Turkish bastnasite ore are summarized in this paper."

Jan 1, 2014

By Kari Niiranen, Andreas Fredriksson

LKAB (Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB) is operating iron ore mines, concentration plants and pelletizing plants in Northern Sweden. Geometallurgy, which combines geological and metallurgical information is not a new way of thinking at LKAB, but rather a revised and updated version of an old working process. A project called "Silica in the Mine" which started in 2007, was an important reason to set a new focus at the geometallurgy. The target of the project was to develop a simplified method in laboratory scale to predict SiO2 grade in the magnetite concentrate in Kiruna and further predict the physical properties of the crude ore with respect to processing characteristics. The connection between mineralogy and products properties have started to be even more vital and necessary to examine due to the future exploiting new iron ore deposits. Geometallurgy at LKAB can be described as a mental and strategic framework where the Research and Development department (R&D), and others within the organization of LKAB, aims towards the connection of the minerals-production-products. It could in its basics be called "research & development", but it must be clarified that changes have been made, mainly due to the development on the instrumental analysis side. LKAB’s idea is to work quite broad, with internal educations, an active working process in ongoing projects, together with external parties (such as universities), with several PhD-projects and an upgrading on the instrumental side at the LKAB Research & Development department. This paper is a summary about the concept Geometallurgy at LKAB and some of the actions within its framework.

Jan 1, 2014

By Anuttam Patra, Romain Bordes, Andreas Fredriksson, Tommy Karlkvist, Krister Holmberg, Kota Hanumantha Rao

Almost all of the flotation reagents used today were discovered by continued application of empirical methods and/or trial and error experimentation. Moreover, with the metal-ion specific approach used so far, it is difficult to separate the minerals containing the same constituent metal ion. A critical assessment of molecular recognition processes involved in biomineralization suggested the possibility of using reagents which are surface specific. The concept that the molecules consisting of two or more functional groups having appropriate spacing between those so as to achieve structural/stereochemical compatibility during interaction with the mineral surface exhibit structure-specificity is thought to be extended to the design of specific collectors in flotation processes. In the present study, for the first time, a rational design of surface active molecules, and thereby the recognition of crystal faces (of minerals) by these molecules through structural and stereochemical matching is being utilized successfully to selectively float various minerals. For this purpose, carboxylate-based collectors (for mineral specific flotation of calcium minerals) as well as xanthate-based collectors (for mineral specific flotation of sulphide minerals) with a fixed alkyl chain length but having two functional groups with varying geometrical distances (separated by a spacer of one, two and three carbon atoms) between them have been synthesized. In this article, we have discussed the design, synthesis, purification of these novel mineral specific collectors as well as their important solution parameters in relation to flotation processes.

Jan 1, 2014

By Tsvetan Damyanov, Nikolay Hristov, Evgeni Kostadinov, Lubomir Kuzev

"The process of grinding in drum mills is directly dependent on the dynamic forces occuring in the free movement of the grinding bodies in the volume. The subject of discussion are the potential impacts between grinding bodies having different shape and equal weight in a drum mill that has a diameter of 1200 mm. The study utilised ball grinding bodies having a diameter of 120 mm and tetraballpebs having a conditional diameter of 120 mm. The study was carried out using the Solid Works Simulation software. The following cases were examined: • Impact between two identical grinding bodies; • Impact between a grinding body and the shell surface. The study provided numerical values for impact force, kinetic energy of impact, linear speed of impact, linear displacment of the center of gravity and duration of impact deformation. The impact force of the balls is approximately 179000 N. The impact force of the tetraballpebs with typical vertices, edges and spherical surfaces depending on the area of impact is 177000 to 185000 N. Upon impact between two spherical surfaces of tetraballpebs, the contact area is 263.55 mm2, which is more than twice the contact area upon impact between two balls, which is 114.39 mm2. This determines better conditions for the transmission of kinetic energy by reducing opportunities for overgrinding."

Jan 1, 2014

By Jaime Sepúlveda

"A broad diversity of critical operating conditions may influence, in very convoluted ways, the actual performance of any given mineral processing system, to the extent that it becomes nearly impossible to empirically determine the independent, decoupled impact of each condition. An effective approach to better understand the behaviour of such complex systems is via the extensive use of sufficiently detailed and reliable mathematical models, allowing the process analyst to explore and learn about the independent effect of all relevant operational conditions. Certainly, these tasks are greatly facilitated if the appropriate software tools - such as the Moly-Cop Tools software package - are readily available. Moly-Cop Tools 3.0 is a set of 63 easy-to-use EXCEL spreadsheets designed to help process engineers characterize and evaluate the operating efficiency of any given grinding circuit, following standardized methodologies and widely accepted evaluation criteria. Moly-Cop Tools 3.0 covers conventional and semiautogenous mills, crushers, HPGR’s, rod mills and vertimills, with the corresponding mass balance and parameter estimation routines; plus complementary spreadsheets regarding Bond’s Law calculations, grinding media selection and performance evaluations and other useful utility functions. As a relevant example of application, specifically focusing on semiautogenous grinding operations, the current publication describes how the models can help us learn and rationalise critical empirical observations such as the relationship between feed particle size and optimal ball filling, the role of the rocks as autogenous grinding media as well as the impact of feed size and discharge grate opening on the mill grinding capacity. Over the last 20 years, Moly-Cop Tools has gained wide acceptance around the mineral processing community in recognition to the quality of the mathematical models contained, their simplicity of application and ease of sharing of the calculations amongst all interested parties, since it is available free-of-charge with no restrictions to make as many copies as needed."

Jan 1, 2014

By Y. M. Zhu

Lead in environment often causes a serious health hazard. The removal of Pb2+ from aqueous phase is a beneficial project. In this paper, deposited Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S.c.) was chosen as adsorbent, Pb2+ ions as adsorbate, and the process of biosorption was studied. The dynamics of the adsorption was investigated. The adsorption mechanism of Pb2+ by S.c. cells was also investigated by detecting microstructure, zeta potential under different pH value, FT-IR spectra of the S.c. particles before and after biosorption. It was shown that the biosorption of Pb2+ by deposited S. c. is a rapid process, and the adsorbing equilibrium is reached within 10 minutes. The Zero point of zeta potential of S.c. cells is pH=3.3. When 2.0<pH<3.3, there exists biosorption (biosorption rate 76%~88%), which means static bio-sorption been not the only kind of biosorption. FT-IR spectrum analysis showed that groups on bacteria surface were mainly characteristic groups of protein and amylase; oxo-groups and nitric-groups on S.c. cell surface could chelate with heavy metal ions. Chemical adsorption might exist in the process.

Jan 1, 2014

By V. Avdochin

The main reason of flotation process fluctuations is mixing ores of various properties from various sections of a deposit. Other, also important reasons are changes in parameters of facilities of technological cycle, as well as properties of reagents applied. According to estimates, instability and non-optimized parameters of flotation owe 3% to 6% of valuable component losses. Without ore averaging systems flotation process is characterized by considerable fluctuations of all input, output and intermediate parameters. Stab One more way is optimizing the process, providing for determination and maintaining optimal parameters of the process. In these conditions application of various mathematic models does not allow controlling the process by the way of action on input parameters of the process with further precise reaching required values of output parameters. More effective is to be application of flotation models for solution of questions of choosing and optimizing of automatic control systems. The work presented examples of application mathematic model of flotation process for estimation of effectiveness and choice of parameters of automatic control system that reduces considerably a stage of preliminary studies in elaboration, designing and modernizing automatic control systems.

Jan 1, 2014

By Khoi Nguyen, Keeney. Luke

An outcome of geometallurgical mapping and modeling is the generation of continuous down hole profiles of quantitative geometallurgical attributes at assay scale. These attributes vary from traditional routine data collection methods such as assays and geotechnical logging (e.g. RQD, Fracture Frequency), to new measurements including petrophysical attributes, EQUOtip hardness data and modelled estimates of metallurgical performance indices (e.g. A*b, BMWi). Highly variable continuous geometallurgical data with high spatial resolution can make it difficult to identify spatially continuous domains. An automated method based on the well known time series analysis technique of cumulative summation (CuSum) has been developed which uses statistical analysis to identify domain boundaries in down hole profiles. A bootstrap analysis automatically identifies potential domain boundary locations with associated confidence levels and a series of t-tests determine the significance of defined populations. A hierarchical clustering algorithm is applied to results to enable data sensitivity to be taken into account. The method produces statistically significant populations and is suitable for application on either single or multiple drill hole datasets. Domains defined preserve the inherent variability of the continuous down hole data and provide a method for scaling up variability data (i.e. assay interval scale) to mine scale (i.e. bench scale, block model). A major advantage of the method is its ability to provide suitable input parameters for use in spatial modeling of non-additive and non-linear geometallurgical attributes through conditional simulation techniques.

Jan 1, 2014

By H. Koca, D. O. Aksoy, S. Koca

"In this work, modelling of galena flotation from a disseminated Pb-Zn ore containing 0,83 % Pb was investigated. In the flotation experiments, collector type and amount, frother type and amount, particle size, pH and flotation time were kept constant while solid ratio and depressant dosage were varied. The varied parameters are described with a mathematical model by using statistical design method. Central Composite Design method which is one of the principle response surface methodologies was used in statistical design and analysis of experimental results and process modelling. Two quadratic mathematical models were developed for Pb grade and Pb recovery. Analysis of variance showed that models obtained for Pb grade and Pb recovery were found to be statistically significant in 95 % confidence level. Predicted vs actual values of Pb grade and Pb recovery were also given in graphically. It was found that predicted values represent approximately 96 % and 94 % of actual Pb grade and Pb recovery, respectively. The high values of R-square (R2) indicate that the models developed for two response variables are powerful. INTRODUCTION Lead and zinc metals are widely used in electrical, mechanical, military, metallurgical, chemical, light and medical industries. Sulfide ores are the main resources for lead and zinc minerals (Luo et al., 2016). Froth flotation is the main beneficiation method to achieve lead and zinc sulfide minerals separation. There are two basic approaches to obtain lead and zinc separation by flotation. First, flotation of lead sulphide is carried out and zinc sulphide and gangue minerals are depressed by various depressants and second, the bulk flotation of lead and zinc sulphide is carried out to obtain a concentrate of lead and zinc, followed by the lead and zinc separation. (Yuan et al., 2012). Apart from concentration of lead and zinc by flotation, there are a few literature that reports concentrations of lead and zinc by gravity and hydrometallurgical methods with remarkable success (Goktepe, 2005; Yanbo et al., 2016)."

Jan 1, 2018

By Olli Haavisto, Heikki Häkkänen, Tommi Kauppinen, Navid Khajehzadeh

Raman analysis is a well-established method for finding the abundant minerals in an ore sample. In this study, Raman spectroscopy is tested as a method for rapid and contactless on-line mineral analysis. Rapidness might enable on-site analysis of rock drillcore, which in turn would lead to more cost-efficient solutions in mineral exploration. This paper discusses the use of Raman analysis to identify minerals and to measure their concentration. The sample set under study consists of rock drillcore collected from Agnico-Eagle Kittilä Mine, Finland. Selected parts of the sample set are measured by Raman spectroscopy and the minerals are identified using reference spectra from a public source. Moreover, the direct measurement of concentration of different minerals with the help of Non-negative least squares (NNLS) optimisation algorithm is considered. The optimisation algorithm was constructed to form a linear combination of reference spectra which best represent the measured spectrum, or an average of measured spectra, from an ore sample. The results show that NNLS can identify abundant minerals in a given sample. Also through this method of analysis the results of a traditional point-count method can be expanded: It was observed that, due to grain size, multiple minerals consistently appear in the spectra measured over an area, which means that point-count method is not a proper way to interpret the spectra. This can be seen as a new result, as formerly the discussion has attended to other methods.

Jan 1, 2014

By T. C. Sun

Two wasted activated sludges (WAS), from an industrial wastewater treatment and a sewage treatment plant respectively, and 7 collectors are used to investigate the feasibility of air flotation thickening of WAS by adding the collectors used in mineral processing. The collectors experimented include straight chain fat acids with different chain length, sodium oleate, alkyl sodium sulphonate, sodium dedecylsulfonate, and dodecylamine. The results show that the thickening efficiency varied depending on different collectors. Of the collectors experimented, dodecanoic acid and dodecylamine are best collector for thickening both sludges.

Jan 1, 2014

By Marina Nicolova, Irena Spasova, Plamen Georgiev, Stoyan Groudev

Different strains of "silicate" bacteria were used to improve the quality of kaolin by different ways of treatment. All strains formed large slimy capsules consisting of exopolysaccharides and were related to different species of the genus Bacillus, mainly to B. circulans and B. mucilaginosus. It was found that even a short contact of some hours of well developed cultures of these bacteria resulted in improvement of the bending strength and the other ceramic properties of the kaolin. The improvement was connected with the action of some secreted microbial metabolites such as soluble heteropolysccharides, monosugars and organic acids. The best results were achieved by continuous cultivation of bacteria in the presence of kaolin with a high relative humidity and subjected to periodic stirring.

Jan 1, 2014

By Shankar Narasimhan

Data Reconciliation is a technique that has been developed more than fifty years ago and has been refined over the past few decades and is now being deployed routinely in several process industries such as refining, petrochemicals, mineral processing and hydro-metallurgy. The main aim of data reconciliation is to obtain accurate estimates of all process variables and parameters using plant measurements that are invariably corrupted by random errors and may also contain biases and other gross errors. These reconciled estimates are subsequently used either in offline exercises such as simulation, retrofitting, and de-bottlenecking or in online optimization and control applications. In this presentation, a brief history of data reconciliation, its assumptions, and uses are reviewed. New developments in this area are highlighted such as robust data reconciliation to handle model uncertainties, and reconciliation using identified models derived purely from operating data. Several case studies in the mineral processing industries reported in the literature are also highlighted to indicate the potential benefits of this technique.

Sep 1, 2012

By Julian Dimitrov, Kremena Dedelyanova

"The paper presents research on hydrodynamic processes occurring at the elementary act of flotation. Discussed existing models to determine the effectiveness of conflict of bubbles with particles in vibration column flotation machine. The paper presents a disperser for a column flotation machine, in which the dispersion of the gas phase is carried out using vertical vibration with defined frequency and amplitude. The paper presents research of mechanism for the creation of air bubbles in vibratory column flotation machine. The factors influencing the increase in the duration of the bubble in the area of contact with the mineral particles are discussed. Research was carried out on the effect of frequency and amplitude of vibrations on speed of precipitation of mineral grains of different density. Formulas are derived for the parameter effect of vibrations, applicable to the design of flotation machine. The collision efficiency of the bubbles in vibratory column flotation machine is determined. The vibrations of the hydrated layer allow for cost-effective implementation of the elementary act of flotation by providing larger relative velocities at the contact point between the bubble and the solid phase. It is proposed to complement the model more accurate representation the mechanism of attachment of the particles to the bubble."

Jan 1, 2014

By Hamid-Reza Manouchehri, Hassna Aitahmed-Ali, Stellan Sundberg

"In flotation practices as the particle size becomes fine, e.g., p<20µm, the process efficiency declines markedly. When flotation of fine particles is necessary, one method to improve the recovery is selective agglomeration of fines. Different agglomerating methods have been introduced and tested; however, one method which has recently received great attention is to aggregate fine particles by magnetic force. A selective aggregation of the fine paramagnetic particles, e.g., sulfide minerals, can be achieved by applying a high intensity magnetic field during flotation conditioning. The method is simple, selective and effective for fines, and has a low operation cost. However, a minimum magnetic susceptibility of fine grains is required for this process. This method has been demonstrated in different sulfide minerals flotation plants. The implementation of the magnetic conditioning device, ProFlote, in both the Cu-Pb and the Zn circuit of Boliden’s Garpenberg plant in Sweden, where a complex massive sulfide ore is treated, is discussed herein. The preliminary results have shown an increase in the recovery of value minerals, in particular Zn and Ag and considerable reduction in Zn deportment to the final tail. Increases in Cu grade and decreases in Pb grade in Cu-con have been achieved as well."

Jan 1, 2014

By P. Thareja, V. Prasad, S. P. Mehrotra

In recent times, the transportation of minerals and their tailings has become a major concern across the world. There exists a huge demand of efficient and cost effective transportation system which poses minimum environmental damage. One of the economically and environmentally viable techniques which potentially offer a solution to the above problem includes transportation of minerals and their tailings in the slurry form through pipelines. Slurry transportation through pipelines is reported to be more beneficial in terms of cost, environmental impact, maintenance and safety when compared with other conventional modes of bulk transportation such as train, truck, barge and conveyors. The main challange associated with hydraulic transportation of slurries is to obtain a non-settled slurry and to design a pipeline system which results in the optimum energy requirement for transporting a large throughput to longer distances at a lower cost. The feasibility of hydraulic transportation of slurries through pipes mainly depends upon slurry properties and flow conditions in the pipe. Results from rheological studies exhibit the presence of shear thinning flow behaviour of minerals and their tailings in water. The flow behaviour index (n) and consistency coefficient (k) obtained from the rheological analysis are further used for the specific energy consumption and energy losses during transportation. The cost of transportation in USD per ton per 100 km and transport capacity in tons per day are calculated from the specific energy consumption to transport these slurries. The results demonstrate that the slurries can be transported to long distances (say, 100 km or more) corresponding to optimum energy consumption and dissipation rate at a substantially cheaper cost than the existing rail and road transport in India. Although we have carried out transportation studies with coal fly ash (CFA), lignite & bauxite slurries, for paucity of space, the results reported here are essentially for CFA slurries. Details of our investigations with lignite coal & bauxite will be reported seperately.

Jan 1, 2018

By John C. Gathje, Rick Moritz, Wilhelm de Beer

"Froth flotation has a long history of success for the recovery and concentration of a wide variety of minerals of commercial interest. Both the art and science of flotation have progressed greatly, and as our knowledge has increased so has our ability to improve mineral separations and recoveries.One area of interest in recent years has been the flotation of refractory gold ores to recover the gold-bearing sulfides. In many instances, the use of conventional air flotation to concentrate these values has achieved only limited success. However, as a result of intensive research, Newmont Mining has expanded the boundaries of flotation, and it can now be used to successfully treat many gold-bearing sulfide ores as well as platinum and palladium ores. This has been achieved through the use of the N2TEC technology, which utilizes nitrogen as an inert gas in the flotation process.Laboratory and pilot plant investigations and a commercial plant have proven its worth. Compared to air, the patented N2TEC process has increased the gold recoveries of many ores by 5 to 15 percentage points, and improvements of an even greater magnitude have been observed. This paper describes the process development for the flotation plant now being operated at Newmont’s Lone Tree Mine located in Nevada, as well as development work that was done on ores from their Twin Creeks Mine also located in Nevada."

Jan 1, 2003

By Rintaro Hayashi

The enrichment of useful components from ores and/or wastes has become important with increasing recent worldwide resources demand and the amount of wastes generated from the urban mines, in order to establish real ?sound resource-cycle society? including the activity of resource exploitation. The first stage of the treatment in the process must be comminution and it is important to make good liberation among compositional phases in the targeted resources. Electrical disintegration (ED) is well known to make a selective breakage at phase boundary. However, the detailed mechanism of the phenomena is not clarified yet, in especial, on the influence of electrical properties of compositional materials on the liberation. This paper made a comparison between the liberation degrees of ED products and the results of electromagnetic field analysis using finite element method (FEM). In the experiments, we used several synthetic cement paste based samples in which mineral particles were dispersed to apply the ED, and in the electromagnetic field analysis, we calculated the charge density accumulated and the Maxwell stress at phase boundary. It was found, for highly insulating mineral samples, that higher breakdown voltage was necessary because electric charge was not easily accumulated at phase boundary but that higher liberation degree was obtained after the breakdown (ED). It was also found the tendency that higher liberation was observed for the samples which had higher maximum Maxwell stress calculated by the electromagnetic field analysis. From the results, the electrical charge and Maxwell stress induced at phase boundary could be driving forces of selective breakage. In addition, we also applied the ED to the printed circuit boards (PCBs) in order to concentrate miner rare metals, which were essential for producing electronic devices. It could be demonstrated that the devices installed on the PCB were easily detached from the board and that most of metal elements in the devices was exposed and liberated from the insulating plastic covers, which were broken in the ED, then, it is considered that the subsequent solid phase separation could be effective for concentrating such metal elements. Keywords: liberation, electromagnetic field analysis, printed circuit board, miner rare metal

Sep 1, 2012

By P. Hatefi, O. Rahmani, M. Noor-Mohammadi, A. Tohry

"Depressants play an important role in the selective separation of impurities from iron minerals by direct or inverse flotation. In this paper, sodium co-silicate (SCS) with chemical formula of Na4SiCO6, as a depressant with pH modifier features, has been synthesized and used for phosphorus bearing iron ore in anionic reverse flotation. In this process, phosphorus is floated while the iron oxides are depressed, using fatty acids as collector in an alkaline medium. Batch and pilot flotation tests were carried out to investigate the influence of SCS on the separation selectivity of phosphorus from iron oxides. Also the depression mechanism of SCS on hematite surface was investigated by microflotation tests and FTIR spectroscopy measurements. The flotation results indicated that without using a pH modifier, the pH of pulp could reach up to 10, when SCS was used as depressant. In this condition, a better depression performance was observed compared to sodium silicate (SS). Using the SCS, phosphorus and total iron content in iron concentrate was 0.046% and 66.29%, respectively, compared to SS where these values were 0.06% and 65.75%, respectively. As a result the weight recovery of iron concentrate was increase by around 4%, compare to SS. It was also found that 238 g/t of SCS could be used instead of 3 types of reagents collectively, including 32 g/t of NaOH, 151 g/t of Na2CO3 and 400 g/t of SS gel.INTRODUCTIONThe phosphorous presents in iron ore minerals is mainly in the form apatite mineral. The apatite is separated from iron ore minerals by magnetic and flotation methods (Ma, 2012). The reverse anionic flotation of iron is one of the most common method for removing phosphorus from iron concentrate (Araujo et al., 2005).Usually apatite minerals are readily floated using anionic collectors such as fatty acids (Ma, 2012). In this conditions the iron minerals are depressed and by modifying the pH in alkaline conditions, selective separation of phosphorus from iron concentrate can be achieved. Depressants including; sodium silicate (SS), starch, dextrin, guar gum and humic acids play an important role in the reverse flotation of iron ore (Kar et al., 2013; Ma, 2012; Turrer and Peres, 2010; Araujo et al., 2005). Studies have shown that SS has a better effect on iron recovery and phosphorous reduction, compared with other depressants (Tohry and Dehghani, 2016; Qi et al., 1992, Dho and Iwasaki, 1990). In most flotation processes, modifiers are used to adjust the pH. To achieve alkaline conditions, mainly pH modifiers such as carbon dioxide and sodium carbonate are used."

Jan 1, 2018