Molecular Engineering and Controlled Nano-assembly for Complex Sulfide Flotation in High Salinity Water

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The depletion of high-grade mineral ore resources has driven Canada’s mining and mineral processing industry to explore new technologies to process lower grade ores. The effective recovery of valuable minerals from low-grade ore requires intensive fine grinding for mineral liberation and a new technology for fine particle flotation. With increasingly stringent environment regulations for zero discharge, recycled water is used for mineral processing and oil sands extraction. As a result, salinity or total dissolved solids (TDS) in the recycled water has increased significantly. These elevated ionic concentrations, as well as the precipitation of metal hydroxides at high pH, retard the collector’s reaction with mineral surfaces and lower the selectivity. These problems limit the effectiveness of recycled high-salinity water or seawater in mineral processing. This discovery program is aimed at developing a breakthrough technology for fine particle flotation in high salinity and seawater. Our approach is to achieve fundamental understanding of the underlying science of the critical physiochemical properties of fine mineral particles and air bubbles in high salinity and seawater. Through controlled nano-assembly, a topography of collector molecules on the surface of fine mineral particles will be designed for selective flotation in high salinity and seawater. The effects of solution chemistry on collector adsorption, air bubble coalescence, and water structure at the air-water interface will be studied in high salinity water. We will elucidate the relationship of molecular structure and topography on mineral surfaces to flotation recovery and selectivity. The interaction forces between bubbles and mineral surfaces in high salinity water will be studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM). This fundamental knowledge lays the foundation for further development of revolutionary fine particle flotation technologies so that our limited mineral resources can be used responsibly with minimum environmental footprint. Scientifically, we anticipate breakthroughs in understanding the nature of molecular nano-assembly structure and interaction forces.