Study on the accelerant to the sodium oleate during bauxite flotation

The conventional collector for diasporemineral is oleic acid(OLA),which is highly insoluble and must be used in high dosage in bauxite flotation.Firstly flotation experiments with every reagent(sodium oleate,tween-20)were carried out and it was shown that sodium oleate was an effective diaspore collector,whereas nonionic surfactant tween-20 showed little collectivity.Then experiments were carried out with sodium oleate as the main collector with the addition of tween-20 to study the influences of potentiator on diaspore flotation.It could be seen from the experiments that potentiator had a marked influence on the recovery of diaspore,which was raised by more than 12% and that addition sequence also affected the flotation behavior.It gave the best results with the reagents mixed thoroughly before added and the best ratio of collector oleic acid and potentiator tween-20 stood at 10:1.From the calculation of the ingredients in the sodium oleate solution,at the pH 9,sodium oleate acted with surface of themineral with the acid-soap polymer [HOL·OL-].Zeta potential test showed that the potentiator promoted the absorption of collector on themineral surface,which lowered zeta potential.As could be seen from surface tension experiments,the addition of potentiator tween-20 lowered the CMC(critical micelle concentration) value of oleic acid solution,which was equivalent to raise the power of the agents.By the adsorptive capability tests,with the addition of tween-20,the adsorption of oleic acid on diaspore got more.