Effect of particle shape properties on selective separation of chromite from serpentine by flotation

Abstract

Although many studies have been conducted on the morphological variations and its effects on flotation recoveries of a single mineral system, a systematic study for the flotation behavior of mixtures of minerals has not dwelled much. In this study, th flotation behavior of chromite and serpentine minerals was investigated to distinguish and isolate the contribution of morphology in single and binary systems. For this purpose, the shape analyses for the minerals ground as single and mixture were performed, and their flotation behaviors determined with the micro-flotation experiments. Additionally, the zeta potential measurements were carried out in the presence of sodium oleate as a collector. The shape analysis of the ground samples showed that while the roundness values of chromite and serpentine (gangue) minerals as single were quite different, the particle shape of chromite favored serpentine in the mixture system which in turn suggested that the mineral with the high hardness value dominates the shape characteristics in binary grinding conditions. Accordingly, while the flotation characteristics of chromite in the mixture followed the same trend with the flotation of a single chromite system as a function of particle shape, almost a reverse trend was obtained for the shape and flotation of serpentine in the mixture compared to a single serpentine system. Thus, at roundness values of chromite particles from 0.797 to 0.732, the flotation recoveries of chromite in the mixture increased from 51.0% to 75.4%. On the other hand, likewise chromite, the flotation recoveries of serpentine increased from 20.0% to 37.3% proportional to the roundness range of 0.757 and 0.709. These findings in turn showed that the grinding conditions dictate the soft component to be monitored by the harder and denser component which dominates the angularity and floatability of the mixture.

Influences of Ferric Ions and Fe as a Minor Element in the Lattice on the Floatability of Cassiterite

“…Such flat particles serve as surfactants and can float without adding an extra collector, which leads to thus the misleading result that pure cassiterite can float. Also, in the study of particle shape, studies report opposite results that the rounder the particle, the higher the recovery, , in which a more complex system containing natural minerals with large chemical composition differences between each crystal structure is involved. To further find out the influence of Fe as a minor element in cassiterite, it is thus important to study the chemical composition exclusively.…”

The effect of shape and roughness on flotation and aggregation of quartz particles

“…Even though many papers reported the effects of different parameters such as grinding type and blasting (Ulusoy et al, 2003;Yekeler et al, 2004;; Ulusoy, U., 2019; Ulusoy, U., 2018; Hassas et al, 2021), ball size (Kim et al, 2019) on morphological characteristics of minerals, to our knowledge, only a few studies reported the effect of grinding time (Ulusoy and Bayar, 2022;Guven et al, 2020;Uysal et al, 2021; on afore-mentioned indices.…”

“…The morphological indices of samples were determined with the "Image Analysis" method by using a digital microscope with 50X magnification. In this context, although many parameters can be evaluated for morphological analysis of particles such as relative width, jaggedness, angularity, etc., regarding their contribution and role in both particle-particle and bubble-particle interactions, the value of the roundness parameter (Ro), in particular, was used for the evaluation of morphological characteristics for each particle (Mahmoud, A., 2010;Guven and Celik, 2016;Guven et al, 2020;Uysal et al, 2021). During these characterization tests, ImageJ software (Free of License) was used based on 2-D particle projections obtained from the micrographs of particles (Fig.…”

“…In recent years, there is an upsurge of interest in understanding the contribution of the morphology of minerals in terms of particle-particle and bubble-particle interactions for improving the existing flotation and aggregation conditions Guven et al, 2020;Uysal et al, 2021). In the literature, the contributions of many parameters have been studied to adjust the grinding and blasting conditions from the point of morphological characteristics of particles (Feng and Aldrich, 2000;Yekeler, Ulusoy, and Hicyilmaz, 2004;Koh et al, 2009;Guven et al, 2022).…”

“…The role of particle roughness becomes less effective than the shape factor at high collector concentrations. In another recent study by Guven et al (2020), the effect of grinding conditions on single and binary mixtures of chromite and serpentine was researched in terms of morphological variations and floatability of both single and their mixtures. The results of single mineral flotation and grinding tests showed that while the floatability of chromite increased as a function of its angularity degree, a reverse trend was obtained for serpentine minerals.…”