Experimental Study and Analysis on Performance and Dedusting Efficiency of Frothing Generator

By simulating test and study in laboratory, the structure and performance offrothing generator were determined. The relative curves between the frothing volume and gas velocityof foaming net, supplying liquid volume and the content of foaming agent were obtainedrespectively. There were an optimum gas-velocity of foaming net, an optimum supplying liquid volumeand an optimum content of foaming agent under the condition of the given material quality and shapeof foaming net and spraying form. The spraying froth is of a great assistance in collectingrespirable dust.

A froth velocity measurement method based on improved U-Net++semantic segmentation in flotation process

During flotation,the features of the froth image are highly correlated with the concentrate grade and the corresponding working conditions.The static features such as color and size of the bubbles and the dynamic features such as velocity have obvious differences between different working conditions.The extraction of these features is typically relied on the outcomes of image segmentation at the froth edge,making the segmentation of froth image the basis for studying its visual information.Meanwhile,the absence of scientifically reliable training data with label and the necessity to manually construct dataset and label make the study difficult in the mineral flotation.To solve this problem,this paper constructs a tungsten concentrate froth image dataset,and proposes a data augmentation network based on Conditional Generative Adversarial Nets(cGAN)and a U-Net++-based edge segmentation network.The performance of this algorithm is also evaluated and contrasted with other algorithms in this paper.On the results of semantic segmentation,a phase-correlationbased velocity extraction method is finally suggested.

Nanobubble generation and its application in froth flotation (part I): nanobubble generation and its effects on properties of microbubble and millimeter scale bubble solutions

A special nanobubble generation system has been developed for evaluating the effect of nanobubble on froth flotation. In this study, an eight-factor five-level Central Composite Experimental Design was conducted for investigating eight important parameters governing the median size and the volume of nanobubbles. These process parameters included surfactant concentration, dissolved oxygen (O2) content, dissolved carbon dioxide gas (CO2) content, pressure drop in cavitation tube nozzle, <50 nm hydrophobic particle concentration, <50 nm hydrophilic particle concentration, slurry temperature and the time interval after nanobubble generation. The properties, stability and uniformity of nanobubbles were investigated. The study of the produced nanobubble’s effects on the characteristics of microbubble solutions and millimeter scale bubble solutions was performed in a 50.8 mm column.

Nanobubble generation and its applications in froth flotation(part Ⅱ):fundamental study and theoretical analysis

Froth flotation is a commonly employed technology to improve the quality of raw coal and minerals.Coal and minerals particle size and surface hydrophobicity are two main parameters that affect three key steps in froth flotation process:particle-bubble collision,adhesion,and detachment.This paper fundamentally investigated the effects of nanobubble on coal and phosphate flotation.It has been found that the presence of nanobubble in flotation pulp could widen the coal and phosphate flotation particle size range,increase the particle surface hydrophobicity,and thus improve the coal and phosphate froth flotation recovery.

Froth flotation of scheelite – A review

Froth flotation of scheelite has regained new focus since the 2010s and research regarding floatability and reagents has made great progress over the years. The main objective was and remains the selective flotation of scheelite from other calcium-bearing minerals, in particular calcite, fluorite and apatite. Due to similar properties, most attempts have limited success or only specific application(linked to a type of ore or a location). This article aims at reviewing all general physical-chemical information on froth flotation of scheelite, including electrokinetic properties, influence of p H and already existing reagents as well as ones still under examination. It appears that chelating or mixed collectors and modified versions of sodium silicate and quebracho hold great promise for scheelite flotation, while the use of said depressants and/or promoters seems inevitable.

Fault detection in flotation processes based on deep learning and support vector machine

Effective fault detection techniques can help flotation plant reduce reagents consumption,increase mineral recovery,and reduce labor intensity.Traditional,online fault detection methods during flotation processes have concentrated on extracting a specific froth feature for segmentation,like color,shape,size and texture,always leading to undesirable accuracy and efficiency since the same segmentation algorithm could not be applied to every case.In this work,a new integrated method based on convolution neural network(CNN)combined with transfer learning approach and support vector machine(SVM)is proposed to automatically recognize the flotation condition.To be more specific,CNN function as a trainable feature extractor to process the froth images and SVM is used as a recognizer to implement fault detection.As compared with the existed recognition methods,it turns out that the CNN-SVM model can automatically retrieve features from the raw froth images and perform fault detection with high accuracy.Hence,a CNN-SVM based,real-time flotation monitoring system is proposed for application in an antimony flotation plant in China.

Nanobubble generation and its applications in froth flotation(part IV):mechanical cells and specially designed column flotation of coal

Coal is the world's most abundant fossil fuel.Coal froth flotation is a widely used cleaning process to separate coal from mineral impurities.Flotation of coarse coal particles,ultrafine coal particles and oxidized coal particles is well known to be difficult and complex.In this paper,the nanobubbles' effects on the flotation of the varying particle size,particle density and floatability coal samples were evaluated using a bank of pilot scale flotation cells,a laboratory scale and a pilot scale specially designed flotation column.The parameters evaluated during this study include the flow rate ratio between the nanobubble generator and the conventional size bubble generator,the superficial air velocity,collector dosage,frother concentration,flotation feed rate,feed solids concentration,feed particle size,and the superficial wash water flow rate,etc.The results show that the use of nanobubbles in a bank of mechanical cells flotation and column flotation increased the flotation recovery by 8%～27% at a given product grade.Nanobubbles increased the flotation rate constants of 600～355,355～180,180～75,and 75～0 microns size coal particles by 98.0%,98.4%,50.0% and 41.6%,respectively.The separation selectivity index was increased by up to 34%,depending on the flotation feed characteristics and the flotation conditions.

Nanobubble generation and its applications in froth flotation(partⅢ):specially designed laboratory scale column flotation of phosphate

Froth flotation is used widely for upgrading raw phosphate.The flotation recovery of coarse phosphate(-1.18+0.425 mm) is much lower than that achieved on the-0.425+0.15 mm size fraction.Enhanced recovery of coarse phosphate particles is of great economic and environmental importance for phosphate industry.In this investigation,four different phosphate samples were aquired,characterized and tested in a specially designed laboratory-scale flotation column.Significant recovery improvement of coarse phosphate flotation was achieved using cavitation-generated nanobubble though its effects differ among the four testing phosphate samples.The laboratory-scale flotation column test results indicate that nanobubble increased P_2O_5 recovery by up to 10%～30%for a given Acid Insoluble(A.I.) rejection,depending on the characteristic of phosphate samples.The improvement effect of nanobubble on the hard-to-float particles was more significant than that on easy-to-float particles,especially at lower collector dosages.Nanobubbles reduced the collector dosage by 1/3 to 1/2.Nanobubbles almost doubled the coarse phosphate flotation rate constant and increased the flotation selectivity index by up to 25%.

Flotation of indium-beard marmatite from multi-metallic ore

Flotation of indium-beard marmatite from Dulong multi-metallic ore in Yunnan Province of China was studied to improve the grades and recoveries of zinc and indium of the zinc concentrate in Dulong concentration plant. The experimental results indicated that copper sulfate mixed with a chemical reagent X- 1 as the activator in the marmatite flotation produced a much better beneficiation than copper sulfate alone, increasing the zinc and indium recoveries of 10% and 6%, respectively, while the concentrate grades remained unchanged. Also, the new activator acted well around pH 10, allowing large savings on lime consumption in the marmatite flotation. In addition, it has been found that a sufficient activated time of activator with ore slurry in the flotation is needed to achieve good beneficiation of the marmatite ore.

Optimization of cavitation venturi tube design for pico and nano bubbles generation

Hydrodynamic cavitaion venturi tube technique is used for pico and nano bubble generations in coal column flotation. In order to determine the optimal design of hydrodynamic cavitation venture tube for pico and nano bubble generation, a four-factor three-level Central Composite Design of Experimental was conducted for investigating four important design parameters of cavitation venturi tube governing the median size and the volume of pico and nano bubbles. The test results showed that maximum volume of pico and nano bubbles, 65–75%, and minimum mean pico and nano bubble size,150–240 nm, were achieved at the medium ratio of the diameter of outlet of the venturi-tube and diameter of throat(3–4), medium outlet angle(11–13°), high inlet angle(26–27°) and high ratio of the length of the throat and the diameter of throat(2.3–3). Study the effects of the producing pico and nano bubbles on fine coal flotation was performed in a 5 cm diameter 260 cm height flotation column. The optimal percentage of pico and nano bubbles was about 70%, which produced maximum combustible material recovery of 86% with clean coal ash content of 11.7%.

Effect and mechanism of siderite on reverse anionic flotation of quartz from hematite

Reverse flotation technology is one of the most efficient ways to improve the quality and reduce impurity of iron concentrate. Mineral processors dealing with hematite face a challenge that the flotation results of reverse flotation of hematite are poor in presence of siderite using fatty acid as collector, starch as depressant of iron minerals and calcium ion as activator of quartz at strong alkaline pH. In this work, the effect of siderite on reverse anionic flotation of quartz from hematite was investigated. The effect mechanism of siderite on reverse flotation of hematite was studied by solution chemistry, ultraviolet spectrophotometry(UV) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR). It was observed that siderite had strong depressive effect on quartz in flotation using sodium oleate as collector, corn starch as depressant of iron minerals and calcium chloride as activator of quartz at strong alkaline pH. The starch was adsorbed onto calcium carbonate by chemical reaction which was formed by CO^(2-)_3 from siderite dissolution and Ca^(2+) from calcium chloride as activator of quartz and precipitated on the surface of quartz, which resulted in improving the hydrophilic ability of quartz.

Clustering-driven watershed adaptive segmentation of bubble image

In order to extract froth morphological feature,a bubble image adaptive segmentation method was proposed.Considering the image's low contrast and weak froth edges,froth image was coarsely segmented by using fuzzy c means(FCM) algorithm. Through the attributes of size and shape pattern spectrum,the optimal morphological structuring element was determined.According to the optimal parameters,some image noises were removed with an improved area opening and closing by reconstruction operation,which consist of image regional markers,and the bubbles were finely separated from each other by watershed transform.The experimental results show that the structural element can be determined adaptively by shape and size pattern spectrum,and the froth image is segmented accurately.Compared with other froth image segmentation method,the proposed method achieves much high accuracy,based on which,the bubble size and shape features are extracted effectively.

CFD model simulation of bubble surface area flux in flotation column reactor in presence of minerals

Bubble surface area flux(S_b) is one of the main design parameter in flotation column that typically employed to describe the gas dispersion properties, and it has a strong correlation with the flotation rate constant. There is a limited information available in the literature regarding the effect of particle type,density, wettability and concentration on Sb. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics(CFD) simulations are performed to study the gas–liquid–solid three-phase flow dynamics in flotation column by employing the Eulerian–Eulerian formulation with k-e turbulence model. The model is developed by writing Fortran subroutine and incorporating then into the commercial CFD code AVL FIRE, v.2014.This paper studies the effects of superficial gas velocities and particle type, density, wettability and concentration on Sband bubble concentration in the flotation column. The model has been validated against published experimental data. It was found that the CFD model was able to predict, where the response variable as indicated by R-Square value of 0.98. These results suggest that the developed CFD model is reasonable to describe the flotation column reactor. From the CFD results, it is also found that Sb decreased with increasing solid concentration and hydrophobicity, but increased with increasing superficial gas velocity. For example, approximately 28% reduction in the surface area flux is observed when coal concentration is increased from 0 to 10%, by volume. While for the same solid concentration and gas flow rate, the bubble surface area flux is approximately increased by 7% in the presences of sphalerite.A possible explanation for this might be that increasing solid concentration and hydrophobicity promotes the bubble coalescence rate leading to the increase in bubble size. Also, it was found that the bubble concentration would decrease with addition of hydrophobic particle(i.e., coal). For instance, under the same operating conditions, approximately 23% reduction in the bubble concentration is predicted when the system was working with hydrophobic particles. The results presented are useful for understanding flow dynamics of three-phase system and provide a basis for further development of CFD model for flotation column.

Surface chemical study of the selective separation of chalcopyrite and marmatite

FCLS (Ferric Chromium Lignin Sulfonate) was used to aid the separation of chalcopyrite from marmatite. Flotation, adsorption and zeta-potential tests of treated marmatite and chalcopyrite were performed. The flotation of marmatite was strongly depressed, while that of chalcopyrite was only slightly depressed, over a wide range of pH values when FCLS was used as depressant in the presence of Butyl Xanthate (BX). The adsorption of BX onto chalcopyrite or marmatite takes place over a wide pH range. The adsorption density of BX on chalcopyrite and marmatite decreases as the pH increases. The adsorption density of FCLS onto marmatite is greater than the adsorption density onto chalcopyrite. The zeta potentials of chalcopyrite and marmatite become more negative due to the addition of xanthate and FCLS.

Effect of pyrite content of feed and configuration of locked particles on rougher flotation of copper in low and high pyritic ore types

Misreported pyrite into copper concentrates dramatically declines copper grade and recovery. Copper flotation can be also more complicated if flotation feed comes from an elevated-pyritic copper ore. In this investigation, the effect of two different ore types(high pyritic and low pyritic feeds) was studied on rougher stage of industrial copper flotation circuit. Samples were taken from different streams and the structure of chalcopyrite within the pyrite and non-sulfide gangue minerals was examined in various size fractions for mentioned ore types. Results indicated that 72% and 56% of the total floated pyrite was transferred to concentrate in first four cells in the low and high pyritic feeds, respectively. Whereas, this proportion for floated SiO_2 in last ten cells was detected as 72% and 71%, respectively. A detailed interpretation of the effect of locked particles in different size fractions on rougher flotation cells is studied from industrial point of view.

Improved image enhancement method for flotation froth image based on parameter extraction

Froth image could strongly indicate the production status in mineral flotation process.Considering low contrast and sensitivity to noises and illumination of froth images in flotation cells,an improved image enhancement algorithm based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) and multiscale Retinex algorithm has been proposed.Nonsubsampled contourlet transform was firstly adopted to decompose the flotation froth images,ensure signals invariance and avoid the blurring edge.Secondly,a multiscale Retinex algorithm was used to enhance the lower frequency image and improve the brightness uniformity.Adaptive classification method based on Bayes atrophy threshold was proposed to eliminate noise,preserve strong edges,and enhance weak edges of band-pass sub-band images.Experiment shows that the proposed method could enhance the edge,contour,details and curb noise,and improve visual effects.Under-segmentation caused by noise and blurring edge has been solved,which lays a foundation for extracting foamy morphological flotation froth and analyzing grade.

Flotation behavior of four dodecyl tertiary amines as collectors of diaspore and kaolinite

The flotation of diaspore and kaolinite by one of a series of tertiary amines（DRN,DEN,DPN and DBN） was investigated.The tertiary amines show better floating recovery for kaolinite compared to diaspore.The maximum recovery D-value is 45%over a pH range from 3 to 8.FT-IR spectra confirm the presence of hydroxyl groups on the surface of kaolinite and diaspore.Zeta potential measurements show that the mineral surfaces are negatively charged over a wide pH range.Ionization of hydroxyl groups mainly accounts for the surface charging mechanism.The adsorption of tertiary amines onto the mineral surface is due mainly to electrostatic effects and the difference in electrostatic effect between a collector and the two minerals can explain the flotation separation.Inductive electronic and steric effects from the substituent groups result in different collecting powers for the four tertiary amines.

Coordinated optimization setting of reagent dosages in roughing-scavenging process of antimony flotation

Considering the influence of reagent adjustment in different flotation bank on the final production index and the difficulty of establishing an effective mathematical model,a coordinated optimization method for dosage reagent based on key characteristics variation tendency and case-based reasoning is proposed.On the basis of the expert reagent regulation method in antimony flotation process,the reagent dosage pre-setting model of the roughing–scavenging bank is constructed based on case-based reasoning.Then,the sensitivity index is used to calculate the key features of reagent dosage.The reagent dosage compensation model is constructed based on the variation tendency of the key features in the roughing and scavenging process.At last,the prediction model is used to finish the classification and discriminant analysis.The simulation results and industrial experiment in antimony flotation process show that the proposed method reduces fluctuation of the tailings indicators and the cost of reagent dosage.It can lay a foundation for optimizing the whole process of flotation.

Nano-microbubble flotation of fine and ultrafine chalcopyrite particles

As is well known to mineral processing scientists and engineers, fine and ultrafine particles are difficult to float mainly due to the low bubble-particle collision efficiencies. Though many efforts have been made to improve flotation performance of fine and ultrafine particles, there is still much more to be done. In this paper, the effects of nano-microbubbles （nanobuhbles and microbubbles） on the flotation of fine （-38 ＋ 14.36 μm） and ultrafine （-14.36 ＋ 5μm） chalcopyrite particles were investigated in a laboratory scale Denver flotation cell. Nano-microbubbles were generated using a specially-designed nano- microbubble generator based on the cavitation phenomenon in Venturi tubes. In order to better under- stand the mechanisms of nano-microbubble enhanced froth flotation of fine and ultrafine chalcopyrite particles, the nano-microbubble size distribution, stability and the effect of frother concentration on nano- bubble size were also studied by a laser diffraction method. Comparative flotation tests were performed in the presence and absence of nano-microbubbles to evaluate their impact on the fine and ultrafine chalcopyrite particle flotation recovery. According to the results, the mean size of nano-microbubbles increased over time, and decreased with increase of frother concentration. The laboratory-scale flotation test results indicated that flotation recovery of chalcopyrite fine and ultrafine particles increased by approximately 16-21% in the presence of nano-microbubbles, depending on operating conditions of the process. The presence of nano-microbubbles increased the recovery of ultrafine particles （-14.36 ＋ 5 μm） more than that of fine particles （-38 ＋ 14.36 μm）. Another major advantage is that the use of nano-microbubbles reduced the collector and frother consumptions by up to 75% and 50%, respectively.

On the optimization of froth flotation by the use of an artificial neural network

A multi layered, feed forward Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used to study the effect of feed mean size, collector dosage and impeller speed on flotation recovery and grade. The results of 30 flotation experiments conducted on Jordanian siliceous phosphate were used for training the network while another 10 experiments were used for validation. Simulation results showed that a four layer network with a [9 11 5 9 2] architecture was the one that gave the least mean squared error (MSE). Using this ANN to optimize the flotation process showed that the optimum flotation parameters were 321.28 μm for the feed mean size, 0.7354 kg/TOF for the collector dosage and 1225.25 RPM for the impeller speed. Studying the effect of these parameters on flotation recovery and grade was done by analysis of variance, ANOVA. The results showed that grade was more sensitive to changes in flotation parameters than was recovery. They also showed that changes in collector dosage had a more significant effect on flotation grade and recovery than did changes in feed mean size or impeller speed.