Study relationships between flotation variables and recovery of coarse particles in the absence and presence of nanobubble

Abstract

Recent investigations indicated that using nanobubbles (NBs) in flotation separation of fine particles (<25 μm) has several advantages; however, a detail study on performances of various flotation parameters (such as hydrodynamic variables and particle properties) and their impacts on recovery of coarse particles (>100 μm) in the presence of NBs have not been fully understood. This work was explored how NBs can change impacts of Reynolds number, conventional flotation bubbles (CBs), air flow rate and particle sizes on flotation recovery of coarse particles (−425 + 106 μm). Several flotation experiments were carried out by using pure quartz in the presence and absence of NBs. Kendall’s tau (τ) as an accurate statistical method was introduced and applied through the provided dataset from the experiments to assess the impacts of NBs. In the absence of NBs; τ assessments demonstrated that there are negative correlations between particle size, air flow rate, Reynold number and recovery (τ ∼ −0.81, −0.18 and −0.12, respectively), and a positive relationship between CBs and recovery (τ ∼ 0.08). In general, results indicated that recovery of coarse particles was increased by ∼14% (on average) in the presence of NBs; however, the magnitude of relationships was not changed (just correlations between Reynolds and CBs vs. recovery were changed: τ ∼ −0.17 and 0.13, respectively). Assessing the simultaneous impacts of Re and CBs on recovery showed that in the presence of NBs; the highest recovery (on average) may receive in lower Re values and higher CB sizes in comparison with in the absence of NBs. Taking all these interactions into consideration, it can be concluded that increasing the rate of bubble-particle attachment and decreasing the impact of Re can be the main reasons for the enhancement of coarse particle recovery in the presence of NBs.