Peng Tiefeng, Huai Yangyang
Jiangxi Copper Technology Institute Co., Ltd, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China.
Jiangxi Copper Corporation, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China.
Front Chem. 2025 Jan 6;12:1493571. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2024.1493571. eCollection 2024.
Whether in industrial production or daily life, froth plays an important role in many processes. Sometimes, froth exists as a necessity and is also regarded as the typical characteristic of products, e.g., froth on shampoo. Froth often makes an important contribution to product performance, such as in cleaning operations. On the other hand, froth may destroy the production process, such as in the textile and paper industry. Another example, ultra-stable froth accumulates on the thickener from flotation brings a series of difficulties to pumping, settling and dewatering operations, and would lead to pollution to the industrial circulating water treatment, thus it must be prevented.
In this work, the factors affecting the stability of froth, and relationship of bubble coalescence and film rupture was investigated, and molecular simulations (MD) were performed to study the aqueous molecular formation and surface characteristics of thin films between bubbles that contribute to the froth stability.
The detailed interfacial structure, molecular formation along -axis, angle distribution within the first and second layer, and also critical thickness were studied and discussed. The film rupture was validated and interpreted by the water-water interactions within the thin film, and these surface interactions were also examined using binding energy, dipole autocorrelation function (DAF). These simulations explicitly utilize polarizable potential model, incorporating many-body interactions, in which induced polarization plays a critical role in reproducing experimental observables and understanding physical behavior.
The results provide beneficial insight for ultra-stable removal from microscopic view, and have direct benefits in dissolved air flotation used in mining industry, to develop efficient and sustainable processes for industries to minimize water and chemical usage.
无论是在工业生产还是日常生活中，泡沫在许多过程中都起着重要作用。有时，泡沫作为一种必需品存在，也被视为产品的典型特征，例如洗发水上的泡沫。泡沫通常对产品性能有重要贡献，比如在清洁操作中。另一方面，泡沫可能会破坏生产过程，例如在纺织和造纸行业。另一个例子是，来自浮选的超稳定泡沫在浓密机上积聚，给泵送、沉降和脱水操作带来一系列困难，并会导致对工业循环水处理的污染，因此必须加以防止。
在这项工作中，研究了影响泡沫稳定性的因素以及气泡聚并与液膜破裂的关系，并进行了分子动力学模拟（MD），以研究有助于泡沫稳定性的气泡间水相分子形成和液膜表面特性。
研究并讨论了详细的界面结构、沿轴的分子形成、第一层和第二层内的角度分布以及临界厚度。通过液膜内的水 - 水相互作用验证并解释了液膜破裂，还使用结合能、偶极自相关函数（DAF）对这些表面相互作用进行了研究。这些模拟明确使用了可极化势模型，纳入了多体相互作用，其中诱导极化在再现实验观测结果和理解物理行为方面起着关键作用。
研究结果从微观角度为超稳定泡沫的去除提供了有益的见解，对采矿业中使用的溶解空气浮选具有直接益处，有助于开发高效且可持续的工艺，以尽量减少工业用水和化学品的使用。
