Process mineralogy of copper-nickel sulphide flotation by a cyclonic-static micro-bubble flotation column

In our study we investigated a refractory copper-nickel sulfide ore separation by using a cyclonic-static micro-bubble flotation column (FCSMC). The process mineralogy of the main products was studied. Using a scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive system (SEM-EDS) and an X-ray spectrometer the mineral category and content of samples were analyzed. By using a mineral liberation analyzer (MLA) the mineral liberation characteristics were revealed. It is shown that in roughing feed the monomers liberation degree of nickel pyrite and chalcopyrite take up 84.11% and 88.82%, respectively. In tailings, the lost nickel pyrite and chalcopyrite are mainly monomers. Therefore, strengthening the micro-fine particle recovery capacity is the key to increase recovery.

Numerical simulation of a self-absorbing microbubble generator for a cyclonic-static microbubble flotation column

The Cyclonic-Static Microbubble Flotation Column (FCSMC) is currently a widely used, novel type of flotation device. The self-absorbing microbubble generator is the core component of this device. The structure of the microbubble generator directly influences flotation column performance by affecting bubble size and distribution as well as gas holdup in the column. However, the complicated flow inside the generator results in high R&D costs and difficulty in testing. Thus, the CFD software, FLUENT, was used to simulate the gas-liquid two-phase flow inside a self-absorbing microbubble generator. The effect of area ratio, a key structural parameter, was studied in detail. Critical flow-field parameters including velocity, turbulent kinetic energy, minimum static pressure and gas holdup were obtained. The simulation results demonstrate that the optimum area ratio is 3.

Research on Pressure Drop Performance of the Packing-Flotation Column

A packing-flotation column was proposed to optimize the flotation environment A research system was es- tablished using a 100 mm diameter cyclonic micro-bubble flotation column to study fluid properties. Dry-plate and wet- plate pressure drops were studied and the corresponding pressure drop equations developed. The results show that the dry-plate pressure drop of the packing cyclonic micro-bubble flotation column is 10–15 times less than that of the chemical tower, which is principally shown in its relatively small resistance coefficient, ξ ≈0.0207. The wet-plate pressure drop is 2–3 times higher than that of the chemical tower, which is largely caused by the separation materials and characteristics of the equipment. With flotation, the greater the pressure drop, the better the flotation environment.

Process intensification of fine coal separation using two-stage flotation column

Flotation column is widely used as the separation equipment for fine mineral due to its high selectivity. However, this device may be unsuitable for the coarse particle flotation and has high handling ability. A two-stage flotation column with dimensions of 2 000 mm×1 000 mm×4 000 mm was designed to enhance the column flotation process. The energy input was modified by adjusting the flow rate and the head of circulating pump. The flotation column was designed with low energy input in the first stage(speed flotation stage) to recover easy-to-float materials quickly, and high energy input in the second stage(recovery stage) to recover difficult-to-float minerals compulsorily. Contrast experiments on the throughput and coarse coal recovery of high ash coal from the Kailuan Mine were conducted using conventional single-stage flotation column and the two-stage flotation column. The results show that the combustible matter recovery of the two-stage flotation column is 5.25% higher than that of the conventional single-stage flotation column. However, the ash contents of clean coal for both columns are similar. Less coarse coals with low ash are obtained using the two-stage flotation column than that using the single-stage column flotation with the same handling ability. The two-stage flotation column process can enhance coal flotation compared with the conventional single-stage column flotation.

Velocity distribution of the flow field in the cyclonic zone of cyclone-static micro-bubble flotation column

Laboratory experiments have been conducted to study the flow field in a cyclone static micro-bubble flotation column. The method of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was used. The flow field velocity distribution in both cross section and longitudinal section within cyclonic zone was studied for different circulating volumes. The cross sectional vortex was also analyzed. The results show that in cross section as the circulating volume increases from 0.187 to 0.350 m 3 /h, the flow velocity ranges from 0 to 0.68 m/s. The flow field is mainly a non-vortex potential flow that forms a free vortex without outside energy input. In the cyclonic region the vortex deviates from the center of the flotation column because a single tangential opening introduces circulating fluid into the column. The tangential component of the velocity plays a defining role in the cross section. In the longitudinal section the velocity ranges from 0 to 0.08 m/s. The flow velocity increases as does the circulating volume. Advantageous mineral separation conditions arise from the combined effects of cyclonic flow in cross and longitudinal section.

Recovery and grade prediction of pilot plant flotation column concentrate by a hybrid neural genetic algorithm

Today flotation column has become an acceptable means of froth flotation for a fairly broad range of applications, in particular the cleaning of sulfides. Even after having been used for several years in mineral processing plants, the full potential of the flotation column process is still not fully exploited. There is no prediction of process performance for the complete use of available control capabilities. The on-line estimation of grade usually requires a significant amount of work in maintenance and calibration of on-stream analyzers, in order to maintain good accuracy and high availability. These difficulties and the high cost of investment and maintenance of these devices have encouraged the approach of prediction of metal grade and recovery. In this paper, a new approach has been proposed for metallurgical performance prediction in flotation columns using Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Despite of the wide range of applications and flexibility of NNs, there is still no general framework or procedure through which the appropriate network for a specific task can be designed. Design and structural optimization of NNs is still strongly dependent upon the designer's experience. To mitigate this problem, a new method for the auto-design of NNs was used, based on Genetic Algorithm (GA). The new proposed method was evaluated by a case study in pilot plant flotation column at Sarcheshmeh copper plant. The chemical reagents dosage, froth height, air, wash water flow rates, gas holdup, Cu grade in the rougher feed, flotation column feed, column tail and final concentrate streams were used to the simulation by GANN. In this work, multi-layer NNs with Back Propagation (BP) algorithm with 8-17-10-2 and 8- 13-6-2 arrangements have been applied to predict the Cu and Mo grades and recoveries, respectively. The correlation coefficient (R) values for the testing sets for Cu and Mo grades were 0.93, 0.94 and for their recoveries were 0.93, 0.92, respectively. The results discussed in this paper indicate that the proposed model can be used to predict the Cu and Mo grades and recoveries with a reasonable error.

Simulating a fuzzy level controller for flotation columns

Level control in flotation columns is an important factor that influences the recovery and the grade of concentrate from the column. A flotation column is a nonlinear, multi-variable problem with changeable parameters that traditional methods have difficulty controlling. We have applied fuzzy control methods to the flotation column and tested the performance of the design by Matlab/Simulink simulation. The simulations show that level control in the flotation column becomes smoother and more rapid with the fuzzy controller. Compared to PID control methods the overshoot in valve position, the adjustment time, and the robustness of the controller are all improved. This indicates that it is suitable to model fuzzy controllers in applications for the study of automatic control of flotation column.

Treatment of Wastewater Containing Heavy Metals Using Dissolved Air Released Flotation Column

A new type of dissolved air released flotation column is developed to treat wastewater containing Cr（Ⅵ） based on advantages of both dissolved air floatation and column floatation. By using a column with a diameter of 50 mm and a specially made dissolved air releaser, micro-bubbles inside the column can be formed. N2H4H2O was used as reductant, AlCl3 as flocculant, C12H25SO3Na（SDS） as surfactant in the experiment. The effects of pH of wastewater, pressure of dissolved air, ratio of return water, and concentration of flocculant and surfactant on the removal efficiency are studied. The results show that the efficiency of dissolved air released flotation column is much higher than that of other approaches after the operation parameters are optimized, with the reduction ratio of Cr（Ⅵ ） in wastewater reaching 98%. So this technique can be widely used in wastewater treatment

THE HYDROELECTRIC SIMULATION OF FLOTATION COLUMN

Both the potential of electric field and the velocity potential of ideal fluid can be expressed with Laplace equation, thus the velocity field of ideal fluid can be simulated by electric field. According to this principle, one simple lab-device is developed. This method can be used to analyze and study the flotation column structure, operation condition such as feed rate, recirculation rate and tailing discharged rate etc. Because this method takes the wall effects of column into consideration in the simulation, it is significance for the scaling-up of flotation column.

MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL OF THE JET FLOTATION COLUMN

According to the new structure of the jet flotation column, a system which can measure and control the parameters of the column flotation system is successfully designed.

Study on the Axial Dispersion of Liquid in Column Flotation

An experimental study on the axial dispersion of liquid was carried out in a 0.382-m-ID flotation column packed with different structured packings or free of packings. The correlations of axial Peclet numbers with the liquid and gas superficial Reynolds numbers were developed for various packings. Among the packings tested, it is found that in the column packed with 250Y or 350Y packings the axial dispersion is the lowest. The addition of frother can decrease the axial dispersion. By the simulation analysis of the one-dimension dispersion model of packed flotation column, it is found that small axial dispersion, high collection rate constant and low axial liquid velocity can increase the collection zone recovery.

Separation of Oil from Wastewater by Column Flotation

A new type of device,a dissolved-air flotation column,was developed for separation of oily wastewater. The unique design idea of the dissolved-air flotation column is the combined use of dissolved-air flotation and column flotation. The dissolved air release occurred within the column separation system. As a potential application the column was investigated for its performance in separating emulsified oil droplets in oily wastewater. A high separation efficiency was obtained in a series of tests. The aeration performance of the bubble generator used in the dissolved-air flotation column was also studied in particular.

An innovative flake graphite upgrading process based on HPGR,stirred grinding mill, and nanobubble column flotation

Physical upgrading of graphite is typically achieved with many stages of grinding and flotation to produce a concentrate with approximately 95% carbon grade.An innovative grinding and column flotation process has been developed for efficient graphite upgrading to substantially simplify the process flowsheet and reduce operating costs.In this process,a high-pressure grinding roller(HPGR) and a stirred mill were employed as primary comminution techniques and a nanobubble flotation column as a key separation process.The results obtained with a crystalline flake graphite sample with a carbon grade of 11.15% show that the novel process can produce a concentrate with 94.82% carbon grade and 97.89% recovery from an open circuit of one rougher and two cleaner flotation stages.Scanning electron microscope(SEM)microphotographs indicate that HPGR offers the advantage of more effective protection of graphite flakes during crushing.Grinding test results show that stirred mill could not only protect graphite flakes but also promote the efficient liberation of graphite.Compared with the traditional flotation process,nanobubble flotation can effectively recover ultrafine graphite.The new process possesses a number of important advantages over the traditional method,including substantially higher graphite recovery,greatly simplified process flowsheet,better protection of flake size,reduced reagent consumption and process costs,etc.

Beneficiation of an Indian non-coking coal by column flotation

Beneficiation of non-coking coal is gaining ground in India. It not only reduces the volume of inert content to be transported to the power plant and also lowers the wear in the boiler houses. For special applications such as the fuel for integrated gasification combined cycle plant （IGCC）, the ash content in the coal should preferably be below 15 %. Indian coals are characterized by high inter-grown ash content mainly due to ＇drift origin＇ of Gondwana formation in Permian age. This warrants fine grinding of non-coking coal in order to liberate the ash forming minerals from coal macerals. A non- coking coal sample of vitrinite type from India was ground to 44 ~tm （dso） and subjected to column flotation to improve its quality. The non-coking coal analyzing 34.6 % ash, 26.2 % volatile matter, 1.3 % moisture and 37.9 % fixed carbon could be upgraded to a concentrate/froth of 14.83 % ash at 72.18 % yield by optimizing collector and frother dosages and flotation column operating parameters, namely, froth depth, superficial feed velocity and superficial air velocity. The concentrate produced by this process is suitable as fuel for IGCC in coal-to-electricity route.

Particle Residence Time in Column Flotation Based on Cyclonic Separation

The cyclonic static micro-bubble column flotation (FCSMC) is an effective separation device for fine particle treatment. The high mineralization rate and short flotation time of this equipment can be attributed to its unique cyclonic force field. It also has been observed that the presence of a cyclonic force field leads to a lower bottom separation size limit and a reduction of unselective entrainment. The collection zone of the column is considered to consist of two parts,a column separation zone and a cyclonic zone. Total recovery of the collection zone was developed. For our study,we analyzed the particle movement in the cyclonic zone. Particle residence time equations for the cyclonic zone were de-rived by force analysis. Results obtained in this study provide a theoretical foundation for the design and scale-up of the FCSMC.

A comparison of anionic and cationic flotation of a siliceous phosphate rock in a column flotation cell

Flotation performance of a de-slimed（-150＋53μm）Jordanian siliceous phosphate was evaluated in a batch laboratory flotation column 100 cm high and 5 cm inside diameter.The collector used during anionic flotation was sodium oleate while an amine acetate（AEROMINE 3100C）was used for cationic flotation.Flotation comparison at different collector dosage,superficial gas velocity,and frother concentration showed that the maximum difference in performance between cationic and anionic flotation was obtained with these flotation parameters：30×10^（-6）（mg/L）frother concentration,250 g/t collector concentration,and 3.4 cm/s superficial gas velocity.At these operating conditions amine （cationic）flotation gave 7%higher flotation recovery,a 6%cleaner concentrate grade,and was 6%more efficient at removing silica.

A honeycomb-tube packing medium and its application to column flotation

We address problems in the development of large-scale flotation columns that use short cylinders. As a starting point, we investigated the packing medium to identify a highly efficient internal packing for the flotation column. The chosen packing was a honeycomb structure with an aperture diameter of 80 mm, a web thickness of 0.80 mm, a film height of 1000 mm, packed into a 400 mm diameter space, which completely filled the vessel at optimal cost. The column consisted of a modular ring of single-hole hexagonal honeycomb tube packing made from atactic polyproplene (PP-R). The packing was tested in a cyclonic, static micro-bubble flotation column. Computational fluid dynamic modeling was used to analyze the flotation fluid in a honeycomb tube packed flotation column. Our results show that the fluid axial movement was maximized and that the transverse fluid velocities were zero in the vicinity of axial flow. Using the honeycomb tube packing for copper sulfide flotation we observed that the average concentration in the product was increased to 25.41%, from an average feed concentration of 0.729%, with an average recovery of 92.92%. The demands of on-site industrial production were met.

Comparison of mechanical and column flotation performances on recovery of phosphate slimes in presence of nano-microbubbles

Fine particle flotation has been one of the main problems in many mineral processing plants.The bubble particle collision rate is very low for fine particles,which reduces flotation efficiency.Also,the existence of slimes is,generally,detrimental to the flotation process,affecting the selectivity and the quality of the concentrates.Besides,it causes an increase in reagents consumption.Hence,in most of processing plants,some of these particles are transmitted to the tailing ponds to reduce the effects of these problems and increase the selectivity of the process.Esfordi phosphate plant in Iran loses more than 30%of its capacity as particles with d 80 finer than 30μm.These fine particles with 15.9%P_(2)O_(5)content are transferred to tailing dam.Processing of fine particles is very important for phosphate industry from economic and environmental aspects.This study addressed the processing of fine tailings(slimes)from a phosphate ore concentrator via flotation,despite the traditional view that ultrafine particles do not float.Phosphate flotation performances in the presence and absence of nanobubbles(NBs)in both mechanical and column cells were compared according to the metallurgical results of the process.NBs(generated by hydrodynamic cavitation)have interesting and exclusive properties such as high stability,durability and high surface area per volume,leading to increase of their utilization in mining-metallurgy and environmental areas.The results of this study revealed that,in the absence of NBs,a concentrate containing 26.9%P_(2)O_(5)with a recovery of 29.13%was obtained using mechanical cells in comparison to 31.6%P_(2)O_(5)with a recovery of 32.74%obtained using column flotation.In the presence of NBs,the recoveries of the concentrate of the mechanical and column flotation increased to 40.49%and 41.26%with 28.47%and 30.43%P_(2)O_(5)contents,respectively.Comparative study showed that the column flotation was almost more efficient for processing the phosphate ore in the presence of the NBs,and had thicker froth layer compared to the mechanical flotation.

Flotation studies on low grade graphite ore from eastern India

A low grade graphite ore from eastern India was beneficiated by flotation to improve its quality. The ore was composed of 87.80%ash and 8.59%fixed carbon. Primary coarse wet grinding （d80：186 μm） followed by rougher flotation in Denver flotation cell using diesel as collector and pine oil as frother yielded a rougher concentrate. Regrinding （d80：144 μm） of this rougher concentrate was opted for further libera-tion of graphite. It was followed by cleaning in laboratory flotation column. This combined process of relatively coarse primary grinding followed by regrinding and cleaning in flotation column resulted in final concentrate of 7.44% yield with 89.65% fixed carbon and 6.00% ash. This approach of two-stage grinding to recover the flake graphite at the coarsest possible grind can help to minimize grinding energy costs. A conceptual flow sheet which is cost effective was developed based on this methodology.

Cyclonic separation process intensification oil removal based on microbubble flotation

The cyclonic-static microbubble flotation column has dual effects including the cyclonic separation and floatation separation with the characteristics of the small lower limit of the effective separation size, short separation time, large handling capacity, and low operation cost. It shows significant advantages in the oily wastewater treatment field, especially the polymer flooding oily wastewater treatment aspect. In this paper, the cyclonic separation function mechanism of the cyclonic-static microbubble flotation column was studied, the impact of the parameters including the feeding rate, aeration rate, circulating pressure, and underflow split ratio on the cyclonic separation efficiency was investigated, and the cyclonic separation efficiency model was established as well. In addition, by applying the Doppler Laser Velocimeter (LDV) and Fluent simulation software, the test and simulation to the single-phase flow velocity field of the cyclonic separation section of the cyclonic-static microbubble flotation column were carried out, and the velocity distribution rule of the cyclonic separation section was analyzed under the singlephase flow conditions.