Flotation Charge

Figure 63 shows the makeup of the internal flotation charge and the final preparations necessary for priming. To prime, attach the blasting cap with a time pencil or other delay device to the top end of the primacord, initiate the delay and seal in... 

Table XI-1 (from Ref. 166) lists the potential-determining ion and its concentration giving zero charge on the mineral. There is a large family of minerals for which hydrogen (or hydroxide) ion is potential determining—oxides, silicates, phosphates, carbonates, and so on. For these, adsorption of surfactant ions is highly pH-dependent. An example is shown in Fig. XI-14. This type of behavior has important applications in flotation and is discussed further in Section XIII-4.

Fig. XIII-9. The dependence of the flotation properties of goethite on surface charge. Upper curves are potential as a function of pH at different concentrations of sodium chloride lower curves are the flotation recovery in 10 M solutions of dodecylammo-nium chloride, sodium dodecyl sulfate, or sodium dodecyl sulfonate. (From Ref. 99.)...

Soluble Salt Flotation. KCl separation from NaCl and media containing other soluble salts such as MgCl (eg, The Dead Sea works in Israel and Jordan) or insoluble materials such as clays is accompHshed by the flotation of crystals using amines as coUectors. The mechanism of adsorption of amines on soluble salts such as KCl has been shown to be due to the matching of coUector ion size and lattice vacancies (in KCl flotation) as well as surface charges carried by the soflds floated (22). Although cation-type coUectors (eg, amines) are commonly used, the utUity of sulfonates and carboxylates has also been demonstrated in laboratory experiments. 

Sulfide Ores ores. In the Zairian ores, cobalt sulfide as carroUite is mixed with chalcopyrite and chalcocite [21112-20-9]. For processing, the ore is finely ground and the sulfides are separated by flotation (qv) using frothers. The resulting products are leached with dilute sulfuric acid to give a copper—cobalt concentrate that is then used as a charge in an electrolytic cell to remove the copper. Because the electrolyte becomes enriched with cobalt, solution from the copper circuit is added to maintain a desirable copper concentration level. After several more steps to remove copper, iron, and aluminum, the solution is treated with milk of lime to precipitate the cobalt as the hydroxide. 

The advantage of using common stock to finance assets is that it does not incur nxed interest charges. Furthermore, there is no maturity date, as there is with all loans and most preference issues. Common stock can often be issued more easily than debt can be financed. However, the flotation costs of common stock can be quite high, especially when stock values are depressed, so that large discounts for the stock are needed to induce purchase. 

For any adsubble method, if the material to be removed (termed the colligend) is not itself surface-active, a suitable surfactant (termed the collector) may be added to unite with it and attach or adsorb it to the bubble surface so that it may be removed (Sebba, Ion Flotation, Elsevier, New York, 1962). The union between colligend and collector may be by chelation or other complex formation. Alternatively, a charged colhgend may be removed through its attraction toward a collector of opposite charge. 

The retention time in the flotation chamber is usually about 3 to 5 min, depending on the characteristics of the process water and the performance of the flotation unit. The process effectiveness depends upon the attachment of air bubbles to the particles to be removed from the process water.57 The attraction between the air bubbles and particles is primarily a result of the particle surface charges and bubble size distribution. The more uniform the distribution of water and microbubbles, the shallower the flotation unit can be. 

Ferric hydroxide coprecipitation techniques are lengthy, two days being needed for a complete precipitation. To speed up this analysis, Tzeng and Zeitlin [595] studied the applicability of an intrinsically rapid technique, namely adsorption colloid flotation. This separation procedure uses a surfactant-collector-inert gas system, in which a charged surface-inactive species is adsorbed on a hydrophobic colloid collector of opposite charge. The colloid with the adsorbed species is floated to the surface with a suitable surfactant and inert gas, and the foam layer is removed manually for analysis by a methylene blue spectrometric procedure. The advantages of the method include a rapid separation, simple equipment, and excellent recoveries. Tzeng and Zeitlin [595] used the floation unit that was devised by Kim and Zeitlin [517]. 

With a chapter on particle-particle interaction (coagulation) the characteristics of particles and colloids as chemical reactants are discussed. Since charge, and in turn the surface potential of the colloids is important in coagulation, it is illustrated how in simple cases the modelling of surface complex formation permits the calculation of surface charge and potential. The role of particle-particle interaction in natural water and soil systems and in water technology (coagulation, filtration, flotation) is exemplified. 

Many processes involving carbonates - ubiquitous minerals in natural systems -are controlled by their surface properties. In particular, flotation studies on calcite have revealed the presence of a pH-variable charge and of a point of zero charge (Somasundaran and Agar, 1967). Furthermore, electrokinetic measurements have shown that Ca2+ is a charge (potential) determining cation of calcite. (Thompson and Pownall, 1989). 

On this subject notice that, possibly combined with various heating methods, several physical effects may be considered which allow free flotation of solid and even liquid matter. Materials may be levitated for instance by a jet of gas, by intense sound waves or by beams of laser light. Conductors levitate in strong radiofrequency fields, charged particles in alternating electric fields, magnets above superconductors or vice versa. A review on levitation in physics with the description of several techniques and their principles and applications was made by Brandt (1989). 

Surfactant adsorption on solids from aqueous solutions plays a major role in a number of interfacial processes such as enhanced oil recovery, flotation and detergency. The adsorption mechanism in these cases is dependent upon the properties of the solid, solvent as well as the surfactant. While considerable information is available on the effect of solid properties such as surface charge and solubility, solvent properties such as pH and ionic strength (1,2,3), the role of possible structural variations of the surfactant in determining adsorption is not yet fully understood. 

The common gangue material quartz (silica) is naturally hydrophilic and can be easily separated in this way from hydrophobic materials such as talc, molybdenite, metal sulphides and some types of coal. Minerals which are hydrophilic can usually be made hydrophobic by adding surfactant (referred to as an activator ) to the solution which selectively adsorbs on the required grains. For example, cationic surfactants (e.g. CTAB) will adsorb onto most negatively charged surfaces whereas anionic surfactants (e.g. SDS) will not. Optimum flotation conditions are usually obtained by experiment using a model test cell called a Hallimond tube . In addition to activator compounds, frothers which are also surfactants are added to stabilize the foam produced at the top of the flotation chamber. Mixtures of non-ionic and ionic surfactant molecules make the best frothers. As examples of the remarkable efficiency of the process, only 45 g of collector and 35 g of frother are required to float 1 ton of quartz and only 30 g of collector will separate 3 tons of sulphide ore. 

The oxide, a-quartz, was selected as the substrate for the present and continuing studies of metal ion adsorption. It is of considerable importance in several practical situations—e.g., water purification and ore flotation—and has the important property that it is negatively charged over a wide pH range since its zero-point-of-charge (z.p.c.) is circa pH 2. 

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