There is evidence of a very weak interaction between sperrylite and xanthate collectors at pH 9, the typical pH used in PGM concentrators. This results in the mineral being hardly hydrophobic when exposed to such collectors. Xanthate collectors adsorb via an electrochemical mechanism which is dependent on pH and Eh. In this study, it was shown that potassium amyl xanthate (PAX) adsorption increases with decreasing pH, with 2.9x10−05 mol/m2 adsorbed at pH 3 compared to only 0.4x10−05 mol/m2 at pH 9. Furthermore, spectroscopic analyses performed in this study showed that PAX is adsorbed as dixanthogen at pH 3 whereas this species was not observed at pH 9. In addition to dixanthogen, the collector may be co-adsorbed as the metal xanthate on sperrylite. However, it is the specific presence of dixanthogen that ultimately strongly promotes the hydrophobicity of the mineral. The adsorption of the collector on sperrylite correlated well with the flotation recovery of this mineral. The microflotation recovery of sperrylite was improved from 22 % at pH 9 to 61 % at pH 3. On the other hand, the use of NaClO to chemically modify Eh was shown to result in excessive oxidation of sperrylite and/or resulted in a reaction between NaClO and PAX which in fact hindered the ability of the collector to impart hydrophobicity. This was found to have a detrimental effect on the floatability of sperrylite. Ultimately, this study provides evidence and insights into the floatability of sperrylite.