I am running some flotation experiments with limited sample availability. One alternative i have is to recombine the products, destroy the chemicals and use it again as feed in other flotation experiments. I wonder if there is any method that can be used to destroy the chemicals absodbed on the surface of minerals effectively. The collector that i use is an alkyl hydroxamate (Aero 6494).
Thanks
Hi.
This is a problem that has come up many times when test sample is in poor supply.
Unfortunately, any chemicals that might destroy the collector will also probably affect the flotability of the minerals. This might be caused directly because they react with or absorb onto them, or it might be the reaction products from destruction of the collector that do.
At the right pH you might be able to wash a lot of the hydroxamate, but it won't all go, and depending on the minerals present, you could be washing out surface ions which will also affect flotation.
Not good news. Sorry about that.
Hi Richard and thanks for the reply. I am producing apatite concentrate. I understand that the use of chemicals will inevitably affect and change the system. But because of the organic nature of the collector i guess that steam treatment combined with ultrasound might work- its one thought i made. Anyways, i guess thats running collectorless flotation can show whether the system has been affected by the washing procedure or not.
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