Effect of frother on cell characterization and circuit performance

浮选是从矿石中回收矿物的最广泛使用的工艺之一，提供了从能源（油砂）到消费品（镍、铜）和先进技术（硅）等日常生活所需的商品。该过程依赖于空气以气泡的形式分散在储罐中，储罐中含有悬浮在水中的粉碎和磨碎的矿石颗粒（泥浆）。在储罐（或矿池）中，疏水矿物（不易湿润）附着在气泡上并上升形成泡沫（浮子产物或精矿）并溢出矿池，而亲水矿物颗粒保持悬浮状态形成非浮子产物（或尾矿）。在分离中通常使用两种化学试剂，一种是用来改变颗粒性质（例如，集热器将亲水颗粒转化为疏水颗粒），另一种是用来改变气泡性质，称为起泡剂。这第二类试剂是本提案的重点。

Flotation is one of the most widely used processes for recovering minerals from ores, providing the commodities of every day life from energy (oil sands) to consumer goods (nickel, copper) and advanced technologies (silicon). The process depends on dispersion of air as bubbles throughout tanks containing crushed and ground ore particles suspended in water (slurry). In the tank (or cell) hydrophobic minerals (not easily wetted) will attach to the bubbles and rise to form a froth (the float product or concentrate) and overflow the cell while the hydrophilic mineral particles remain in suspension to form the non-float product (or tailings). Two chemical reagent classes are commonly used in the separation, one to modify particle properties (e.g., collectors to convert hydrophilic particles to hydrophobic) and another to alter the bubble properties, known as frothers. It is this second reagent class that is a focus of this proposal.