Abstract
In this work, tragacanth gum (TG), a nontoxic and environmental friendly organic polymer, was used to replace the traditional inorganic depressants of chalcopyrite during the flotation separation of copper-molybdenum sulfides. The single mineral flotation and artificial mixed minerals flotation experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of TG on flotation separation behaviour of molybdenite and chalcopyrite. The TG’s adsorption mechanism on molybdenite and chalcopyrite was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). The flotation experiment results showed that at pH 3–8, TG had a significant selective depressive effect on chalcopyrite flotation and it was enhanced with increasing TG concentration, but hardly affected the molybdenite flotation. XPS analysis showed that TG was chemically adsorbed on both molybdenite and chalcopyrite surfaces and ToF-SIMS results demonstrated that the interaction of TG and chalcopyrite was stronger than that of TG and molybdenite. Further, XPS narrow scanning analysis suggested that TG might chemisorb onto chalcopyrite via chemical bond between the carboxyl groups and Fe sites on bulk chalcopyrite surface as well as the hydrogen bond between the hydroxyl groups and surface Fe oxides/hydroxides. The strong TG adsorption on chalcopyrite hindered the subsequent adsorption of PBX on chalcopyrite surface, thus chalcopyrite was significantly depressed and Cu-Mo flotation separation was achieved.
Published Version
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