Insights into the floatability between spodumene and albite from crystal chemistry standpoint

Abstract

Spodumene is a silicate mineral rich in lithium. However, the gangue mineral, albite has similar crystal chemical structure and composition to spodumene. In this work, the density functional theory (DFT) calculation was taken to research the floatability from the perspective of crystal chemistry. And contact angle test and reagent adsorption test were used to support the simulation results. In addition, the weighted total density of broken bonds is proposed for the first time to judge the generation probability of cleavage surface. The DFT calculation results display that the Na and Al sites on the albite surface are the adsorption sites of water molecules. While the water molecules only bond with Al atom on the surface of spodumene and each Al site can adsorb only one water molecule. Thus, the wetting effect of water molecules on the albite surface is stronger than that of spodumene. This is consistent with the result of contact angle. In sodium oleate system, the oleic acid anion is adsorbed on the spodumene surface in form of a multicomponent ring while the albite is a single ring. Theoretically, oleic acid anion can be strongly adsorbed on the surface of spodumene and albite under vacuum. The adsorption strength of spodumene is higher than that of albite. However, on hydrated surface, the adsorption strength of oleic acid anion on mineral surface is greatly reduced due to the interaction between water molecules and metal site on mineral surface. Thus, spodumene and albite are hard to float without external activated ions in sodium oleate system.