Combined Effect of Operating Parameters on Separation Efficiency and Kinetics of Copper Flotation

Ataallah Bahrami,Abolfazl Danesh,Fatemeh Kazemi,Yousef Ghorbani,Morteza Abdollahi,Mohammad Raouf Hosseini

doi:10.1007/s42461-018-0005-y

Ataallah Bahrami, Abolfazl Danesh + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s42461-018-0005-y

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Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of operational variables on concentrate grade, recovery, separation efficiency, and kinetic parameters of the copper flotation process. For this purpose, the effects of the pulp solids content, collector and frother dosage, and preparation and concentrate collection time were studied using a Taguchi experimental design. The results of statistical analyses indicated that the concentrate collection time and pulp density were the most influential parameters on concentrate grade. Considering copper recovery, concentrate collection time, collector dosage, and pulp density were the most significant variables, in decreasing order of importance. Also, the separation efficiency was mostly influenced by the concentrate collection time. Furthermore, kinetic studies showed that the second-order rectangular distribution model perfectly matched the experimental flotation data. The highest kinetic constant of 0.0756 s−1 was obtained from the test, which was performed with 35% solids content and 40 and 20 g/t collector and frother, respectively. The highest predicted copper recovery of 99.57% was obtained from the test at 30% solids content, and the collector and frother dosages of 40 and 15 g/t, respectively.

Highlights

Froth flotation is a physicochemical process that has been used for more than a century in the concentration of copper sulfide minerals [19]
This paper aimed to evaluate the kinetic models and to investigate the influence of some controlling operational factors on concentrate grade, recovery, separation efficiency, and kinetic parameters of the copper flotation process
Studying the combined effects of percentage solids of the pulp, collector and frother dosages, and froth collection and conditioning time parameters on the response variables includes copper grade, recovery, and separation efficiency led to the following conclusions

Summary

Introduction

Froth flotation is a physicochemical process that has been used for more than a century in the concentration of copper sulfide minerals [19]. This process is based on the wettability of copper mineral particles to recover the mineral species of interest and depress unwanted gangue. A very important aspect of flotation is its kinetics. Kinetics is one of the most important aspects of any separation process [38]. The flotation rate is measured as the recovery change of the floating material in the flotation product per unit time and it is Department of Mining Engineering, Urmia University, P.O. Box 57561/51818, Urmia, Iran

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