Analytical evaluation of locked cycle flotation tests

Abstract

A locked cycle test is one of the testing methods used to develop the optimum mineral recovery process. In order to understand the behavior of locked cycle tests, material balance equations are set up at the nth cycle of locked cycle tests consisting of three and four stages, called rougher, scavenger, cleaner and recleaner, and analytical solutions are obtained. From the analytical solutions, it becomes clear that the iteration number of the locked cycle tests required to reach a steady state depends on the flotation rate constant, the flotation time, the arrangement of the flotation stages and the total mass of recycled middlings which are discharged from the nth cycle of the locked cycle tests and fed into the subsequent ( n + 1)th cycle. In addition, flotation characteristics obtained from analytical solutions of a locked cycle test are compared with those of a continuous flotation circuit on the assumption that each flotation stage is composed of the same number of perfectly stirred cells of the same volume. As a result, it is found that good agreement between the theoretical locked cycle test and continuous flotation results is obtained when the number of cells in each stage is large.