Significance of rheology characterisation in mineral flotation process performance

Abstract

Mineral and metal extractive industries play an important role in the current global economics, and mineral processing is one of the key areas to achieve and maintain sustainability. It is known that the rheological behaviour of mineral slurries affects their processing. However, in addition to controlling the transportation of slurries around processing circuits, rheological behaviour also influences separation processes such as flotation. Although the impact of rheology in unit operations such as grinding and slurry transport has received considerable attention, this has not been the case for flotation. This paper explains the relationship between rheology and froth flotation performance. The results revealed that the mineral flotation performance can be improved by controlling the rheology in flotation process.