Effect of air flow rate and froth depth on the flotation performance: An industrial case study in a 10 m³ cell

Abstract

The main purpose of the froth zone in flotation is to transport all the valuable particles from the pulp zone into the concentrate. However, in practice, a complete recovery of these particles is rarely achieved since some of them are detachment from the bubbles and return to the pulp zone. While this is an important topic in the mineral flotation industry, the previously published papers are mainly limited to small laboratory scales. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of two main flotation variables (air flowrate and froth depth) on the flotation of iron ore in a 10 m 3 industrial scale cell. It was found that, when the air flowrate increased from 45 to 146 m 3 /h, the velocity of the bubble coalescence also increased. In addition, when the froth depth increased from 5 to 30 cm, the product grade showed on average 2 unit increase (for instance, from 12% to 14%) due to the detachment of particles and liquid drainage. It was also found that the flotation concentrates recovery decreased with the increasing froth depth and air flowrate.

Effective Removal of Ibuprofen from Aqueous Solution Using Cationic Surface-Active Agents in Dissolved Air-Flotation Process

“…It was observed that the bubble agglomeration could not be seen on the fow rate of 0.25 L/min. Te fotation recovery rates increased to the maximum and decreased with the increase in the fow rate at 0.75 and 1 L/min, and it was due to the formation of bubble coalescence [51]. So, the optimized fow rate was found at 0.5 L/min which is shown in Figure 8.…”