Carrier Flotation of Hematite

The production of fine materials is unavoidable during the comminution of iron ore. Due to the difficulty of recovering iron from this fine material by various gravity separation methods, flotation can often be a more attractive process producing high-grade material at high recovery. One variation of the flotation process, that can be useful for recovering ultrafine minerals (<10 mm), is known as carrier flotation. This process involves the utilization of coarse particles (> 150 mm) which act as flocculation centres to which the fine hematite particles (10-40 mm) become attached and are carried or “piggy-backed” into the froth phase.

Aggregation mechanisms are important interactions between particles in a flotation process. These interactions may include hetero-aggregation (i.e. occurring between particles of different minerals and size), mutual aggregation (i.e. occurring between particles of the same mineral and size) and selective aggregation (i.e. occurring between coarse carrier particles and the fine particles of one mineral in a mixture). Selective aggregation can be considered the same as mutual aggregation when the carrier and desired mineral are the same.

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that carrier flotation is a significant phenomenon in the flotation of hematite fines using oleic acid as a collector.

ВАРІАНТ V