Adsorption Difference of Octadecylamine on (002) and (131) Crystal Planes of Fine Muscovite and Its Guidance on Fine Muscovite Flotation

Abstract

Muscovite has a typical dioctahedral crystal structure. The atoms arranged in different directions of the crystal lattice will cause the anisotropy of the physical and chemical properties of the muscovite crystal planes, which also leads to the anisotropy of these crystal planes in flotation. In this study, Materials Studio 7.0 software was used to optimize muscovite crystal cells, and some properties of the (002) crystal plane and (131) crystal plane were calculated to obtain the anisotropy of these two crystal planes in some aspects, so as to further analyze their influence on flotation behavior. The differences of adsorption between these two crystal planes and octadecamine (ODA) were analyzed by XRD and flotation. The results showed that (002) has higher surface energy and was more easily exposed than (131). Compared with Si-O bond, Al-O bond in muscovite had lower covalent bond composition and was easier to break. O atom was the active site in the flotation of muscovite, and the (131) crystal plane was more likely to adsorb with ODA than (002) crystal plane. Through the simulation results, more (131) crystal planes can be exposed in the grinding stage to improve the flotation efficiency.