Kapiamba K Fabrice, Kimpiab Merveille
Department of Chemical Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Symphony way, PO Box 1906, Bellville, 7535, Cape Town, South Africa.
Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO, 65401, USA.
Heliyon. 2021 Mar 25;7(3):e06559. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06559. eCollection 2021 Mar.
Iron ore froth flotation has recently been used to obtain pure minerals due to the depletion of high-grade deposits. Amine collectors have often been used in cationic reverse iron ore flotation to achieve the separation with quartz impurities. The main problem associated with these collectors is related to the control of frothing properties and the high cost of amine reagents. In this paper, we report the benefits of partial replacement of amine collectors with a frother in reverse cationic flotation of hematite. Surface tension and batch flotation experimental results indicated for the first time that replacing Flotigam EDA, an etheramine collector by more than 10% improved the flotation performance in both grade and recovery of hematite. It was also noted mild hematite entrainments for lower frother dosages whilst reagents cost estimation indicated profitability per ton of iron recovered. At higher frother dosage however, higher quartz recoveries were observed as a result of entrainment which led to satisfactory results in terms of iron grade in the sink, but results showed higher costs of reagents than when collector was used alone. From observed results, it was concluded that partially replacing amine collector by a frother does improve the performance of the flotation globally regardless of pronounced entrainment that was mainly due the mineralogy of the ore with notable amounts of locked particles in the lower sizes. Finally, it would be useful to investigate these findings with alternative reagents and on minerals with different mineralogical properties.
由于高品位矿床的枯竭，铁矿石泡沫浮选最近被用于获取纯矿物。胺类捕收剂经常用于阳离子反浮选铁矿石，以实现与石英杂质的分离。与这些捕收剂相关的主要问题涉及泡沫性能的控制以及胺类试剂的高成本。在本文中，我们报告了在赤铁矿阳离子反浮选中用起泡剂部分替代胺类捕收剂的益处。表面张力和分批浮选实验结果首次表明，用超过10%的起泡剂替代醚胺捕收剂Flotigam EDA可提高赤铁矿浮选在品位和回收率方面的性能。还注意到，较低的起泡剂用量会导致少量赤铁矿夹带，而试剂成本估算表明每吨回收铁具有盈利能力。然而在较高的起泡剂用量下，由于夹带导致石英回收率较高，这使得沉槽中铁品位的结果令人满意，但结果显示试剂成本高于单独使用捕收剂时。从观察结果得出结论，用起泡剂部分替代胺类捕收剂确实能整体提高浮选性能，尽管明显的夹带主要是由于矿石的矿物学特性，较小粒度中有大量包裹颗粒。最后，用替代试剂并在具有不同矿物学特性的矿物上研究这些发现将是有益的。
