The Role Of TBC On Titanium Minerals Flotation

Due to inadequate reserves of rutile, espeically the lack of placer deposits, the primary ore became the major rutile resources in China. And the separation of rutile from the other component minerals is difficult because the rutile grain size often appears very fine and it's difficult to realize tailings discarding.T hus the development of flotation collectors is of vital importance for the utilization of the rutile resources in China.In this paper, a new effective, selective chelating collector, TBC, was developed for titaniium minerals flotation based on pure mineral flotation and the applicatin to process two kinds of titanium ores.The mechanism was them studied in aspects of molecular dynamics, coordination chemistry, solution chemistry and also spectra dertermination. The following are the main work and results:In the pure mineral flotation, both of single and the mixtures, TBC shows much higher performance for rutile, compared with SHA and BHA, and no activation was needed. Under the optimum condition, the recovery of single mineral flotation reached 97.5%.In the mixture flotation of rutle and quartz, the recovery and grade of rutile reached to 92% and 80%, respectively. The results for the mixture flotation of rutile and calcite were both 80%.For the single mineral flotation of Panzhihua ilmenite and a gangue mineral,titanaugite,the performace was still high and the selectivity still very good. With the pH=7 and the dosage at 8×10-5mol/L, recoveries of 91% and 47% were achieved for the two minerals respectively and the flotability difference was remarkable at the pH range of 5-9.TBC shows a limit performance in batch scale flotation of a copper ore taling while the resulta were much better for Panzhihua ilmenite ores.The HOMO and LUMO energy of the seven collectors were calculated to evalute the ability of them to compex Ti(IV).The differerce of the stcuture of Ti(Ⅳ) and Ca(Ⅱ)may lead to the selectivity of chelating collectors in flotation of rutile and calcite. Adsorption model of TBC onto the rutile(110) surface and thea-quartz(100) surface were established and optimized by Molecular Dynamics, and the adsorption energies were calculated to find the lowest energy adsorption form of TBC on of the two mineral surfaces.It turned out that molelular adsorption and the complete dissociation form were the best form for rutile and quartz, respectively.The tendcy of TBC to adsorp on rutile surface is much stronger than to quartz surface, which explains the selectivity of the collector for tutile.An interaction mechanism was finally proposed based on moleculaer dynamics, IR spectrum and further analysis.In the flotation process, TBC may first moves close to rutile surface in the molecular form.Then it moves closer until chemical bonds are formed and TBC chelates to Ti atom to form a 5-membered ring.