Research On Floatability Of Kyanite Minerals

Kyanite minerals resources are abundant and the production is dominant in our country.Kyanite minerals are the raw material to produce refractory materials of high quality.With the growth of the national economy,the demand for refractory materials of high quality becomes more heavily,but kyanite minerals resources of high quality are relatively more and more poor.For that reason,it is more important to concentrate kyanite minerals from gangue mineral,and among various beneficiation methods,flotation is the main method.In the positive flotation system of sodium oleate and the reverse flotation system of dodecylamine,the floatability of kyanite minerals and quartz,the main associated mineral,is studied systematically in this paper.The paper mainly discusses the influence on the behavior of kyanite minerals and quartz by metal cations which are difficult to avoid as well as the effect of organic and inorganic regulators on minerals which have treated by trivalent metal ions.Influence on flotation behaviors of kyanite minerals is analyzed combined with all the test results.Experiment investigated comprehensively the influence of metal cations which are difficult to avoid on flotation behaviors of minerals.Common metal ions such as Ca2+,Mg2+,Al3+,Fe3+ are selected to carry out the flotation experiment.In sodium oleate flotation system,metal cations activate the minerals while in dodecylamine flotation system,metal cations depress the minerals.Owing to that Al3+,Fe3+ have evident influence on minerals’ flotation behavior,but Ca2+,Mg2+ have little,minerals treated by Al3+,Fe3+are selected to finish the rest of experiments.The experiment that inorganic regulators,such as sodium silicate and sodium hexametaphosphate,and organic modifiers,such as citric acid and starch,adjust the minerals treated by Al3+,Fe3+ is also carried out.The experiment indicated that,using sodium oleate as collector while minerals activated by Fe3+,when the dosage of sodium silicate is beyond 100mg/L,kyanite minerals and quartz can be separated and when the dosage of sodium hexametaphosphate is beyond 150mg/L,it is possible to separate kyanite minerals and quartz.When the dosage of citric acid is 5mg/L,kyanite minerals and quartz which are activated by Fe3+ can be separated possiblely.When minerals are activated by Fe3+ or Al3+ and the dosage of sodium hexametaphosphate is beyond 150mg/L,it is possible to separate kyanite minerals and quartz using dodecylamine as collector.Mechanism study on flotation behavior of kyanite minerals manifest that the difference of mineral crystal structure and chemical bonds makes the exposure ions on the surface of minerals variously when those minerals are crushed,which decide the electric properties on the surface of minerals and the chemical sites that can interact minerals with reagents differently.We can see from the results of calculation of chemical solution and metal cations that,under different pH,the occurrence state of ions and the important components of reagents in the ore pulp decide the flotation performance of different minerals.The test results of Zeta potential indicate that metal cations have significant effects on electrical property on the surface of minerals,which is one of the main reasons that affect the mineral flotation behavior.Studying the influence factor on the diversity of floatability of kyanite minerals and quartz systematically and enriching the flotation theory of kyanite minerals has very important theoretical and practical significance on guiding the flotation separation of real kyanite minerals from quartz.