“…The selective adsorption of starch onto hematite instead of the gangue minerals is of critical importance not only for the flotation of iron ore, but also for the selective flocculation of iron ore as well, since starch appears to be more selective than other flocculants such as polyacrylamides and polyacrylic acid (Weissenborn et al, 1994;Ravishankar et al, 1995). In the literature, flotation and selective flocculation have both been investigated for the removal of alumina containing minerals from iron ore (Gururaj et al, 1983;Ravishankar et al, 1988;Mahiuddin et al, 1989;Pradip et al, 1993;Ravishankar et al, 1995;Weissenborn et al, 1995;Ma et al, 2009). However, the adsorption behaviour of starch on alumina containing minerals, the role of steric forces in the system of starch and alumina containing minerals, and the effect of pH and ionic strength remain unknown.…”