Detachment of coarse composite sphalerite particles from bubbles in flotation: Influence of xanthate collector type and concentration

Fosu, Shadrack; Skinner, William; Zanin, Massimiliano

doi:10.1016/j.mineng.2014.10.014

Cited by 41 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…In fact, none of the particle or mineral textural descriptors discussed so far (particle composition and liberation, grain size distributions, phase specific surface area, intergrowth texture complexity and locking ratio) provide a description of the spatial distribution of target mineral grains at particle surfaces. Further investigations by Fosu, et al (2015b) also provided evidence of greater attachment probability for an air bubble to a particle surface comprising multiple exposed sphalerite grains.…”

Section: Spatial Distribution Of Hydrophobic Mineral Grains In Composmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…There is, however, evidence that suggests this approach might not strictly be true for heterogeneous mineral particles present in flotation feeds (Hua, et al, 2009;Gao & McCarthy, 2009;Fosu, et al, 2015b;Gautam & Jameson, 2012;Jameson, 2012).…”

Section: Impact Of Particle Perimeter Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A review of the literature in Chapter 2 revealed evidence suggesting the spatial arrangement of exposed hydrophobic mineral grains play a role in the recovery process (Hua, et al, 2009;Gautam & Jameson, 2012;Fosu, et al, 2015a;Fosu, et al, 2015b) but that the indicators most frequently used to describe the microtexture of minerals within a particle or particle population -grain size, phase specific surface area (PSSA), intergrowth complexity, locking ratio and surface composition -do not provide a means of quantifying this characteristic for exposed grains. When air bubbles attach to mineral particle surfaces the bubbles are pinned to surface irregularities and sharp edges of these particles (Gautam & Jameson, 2012;Feng & Nguyen, 2016) and these attachment forces are greater than those exhibited by smooth surfaces or round particles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently published research suggests that the spatial arrangement of exposed mineral grains may influence recovery by playing a role in particle-bubble attachment probabilities in flotation (Fosu, et al, 2015b;Gautam & Jameson, 2012), and that different spatial arrangements of hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains (for the same overall composition) affect the local structure of water molecules close to surfaces (Hua, et al, 2009) and hence the wetting characteristics of the surfaces. The work presented in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 was motivated due to the fact that none of the aforementioned textural descriptors quantify the spatial arrangements of target mineral grains on the particle surface.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The nature of composite surfaces is a complex phenomenon where theoretical predictions do not always match experimental results (Xia, et al, 2015;Ramrus & Berg, 2006;Gautam & Jameson, 2012;Feng & Nguyen, 2016;Fosu, et al, 2015b). This is also true for the flotation of composite particles and because it is presently not possible to in a practical manner physically separate mineral particles in a bulk sample into specific composition or texture classes for characterisation such as contact angle or bubble detachment force measurements their flotation characteristics are frequently modelled by considering the mineral composition of the exposed surfaces along with the flotation characteristics of the mineral components making up the particle surfaces (see for example Ralston, et al (2007);Evans (2010) andFord, et al (2011)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of mineral grain textures at particle surfaces on flotation response

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This research investigates the contribution of the spatial arrangement of hydrophobic mineral grains at particles surface towards their flotation response and its implications for forecasting flotation response. The approach taken was to estimate this grain textural characteristic from particle sections and to identify how it affected the overall rougher and scavenger copper mineral flotation recovery from two industrial copper flotation circuits.For the second circuit the overall rougher flotation kinetic parameters for the copper mineral were also evaluated.The first contribution of this work is the demonstration that a novel textural indicator is relevant to understanding the contribution of exposed mineral grain texture on the flotation process. It is the first mineral grain textural indicator that considers both the size of the grains and the degree to which they are dispersed at the particle surface. When the indicator was applied to particle sections from flotation feed, concentrate and tail samples from two industrial copper flotation circuits, it was shown, for the first time, with confidence that while particle size and perimeter composition affect particle flotation response the spatial arrangement of the copper mineral grains at the particle surface plays a key role.For the iron-oxide-copper-gold ore, copper mineral grains in complex texture classes produced statistically higher overall rougher recoveries for the 0-20% perimeter composition class. Chalcopyrite grains in complex texture classes in the copper porphyry ore produced higher overall rougher and scavenger recoveries for the 20-40% perimeter composition class. For the 0-20% perimeter composition class statistically meaningful differences were observed for the +106 m size class. It was shown that the higher overall recoveries for the complex texture classes in this case were due to increases in the overall rougher rate of flotation, the proportions of recoverable chalcopyrite in the feed or both. For both ores the largest proportions of copper mineral within complex perimeter texture classes were within coarse particles and complex textures were less common when particle perimeters comprised more than 40% of the copper minerals. This demonstrated that in order to study the impact of this textural characteristic for the two ores it must be done within well-defined particle size and perimeter composition classes, an important outcome that has not been reported in the current literature.The second contribution is a three-step method for evaluating the flotation response of copper minerals within different grain texture classes namely; particle perimeter texture II estimation, determining coefficients of variation in the mass proportions of the target mineral within perimeter texture-composition classes and mass reconciliation and recovery calculations. Another key contribution is in applying the bootstrap resampling technique to estimate these coefficients. This demonstrated the sensitivity of seemingly feasible perimeter texture-compos...

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Section: Spatial Distribution Of Hydrophobic Mineral Grains In Composmentioning

confidence: 94%