Development of flotation unit with high-pressure rotational pulsation aerator

Abstract

An enlarged version of the flotation unit equipped with a high-pressure rotational pulsation aerator (HPRPA) was manufactured. Studies and tests were carried out using a refractory fine-grained gold-containing ore sample from one of Kazakhstan deposits. The experiment and practice of flotation using the HPRPA developed by the authors demonstrated that pressure fluctuations created by the aerator ensured the efficiency of the functional use of two periods: (1) dissolution of additional gases in the high-pressure compression period, which provides the aeration process with the necessary amount of dissolved gases; (2) pseudo-cavitational emission of gases in the medium rarefaction period, which ensures aeration with gas emission from the aqueous phase directly on hydrophobic mineral microparticles, i.e. selective flotation of microdispersions. The obtained results showed that ore flotation in the flotation unit equipped with the HPRPA lead to a very significant positive effect not only with regard to the extraction of metals, but also to the quality of obtained concentrates.