Effect of reagents on flotation kinetics of differently sized feeds

Abstract

The particle size and reagents are the most important parameter in flotation performance. Flotation kinetics models are used to define the rate of flotation and ultimate recovery. In this paper, flotation kinetics studies on a composite feed of -0.5 mm and three split-sized feeds including -0.5+0.25, -0.25+0.1, and -0.1 mm were conducted by using four different reagent combinations. The experimental data in terms of both combustible recovery - time and ash recovery - time were fitted with six different kinetic models to evaluate the best-fitted kinetics model. The feeds of different sizes responded differently to flotation kinetics with different reagent combinations. The combustible particles for all the sized feeds followed only first-order kinetics, whereas ash-bearing particles followed the second-order kinetics. Although coarsest particles have the lowest kinetics reported in the literature, synthetic collector and synthetic frother exhibited the highest kinetics by coarsest feed and lowest by intermediate-sized feed. Other reagent combinations show the highest kinetics by intermediate-sized feed. The selectivity of a particular reagent combination was found to be different for different sized feeds.