Interaction of Fe2+with cerussite surfaces and its depression effect on adsorption of sulfidizing agent and collector

Fe2+ is ubiquitous in flotation pulp and circulating water during the purification of various minerals, and can affect floatation behavior. As such, separating target minerals from gangue minerals can become challenging. In the present work, the flotation performance and resulting surface features of cerussite following exposure to Fe2+ were systematically and experimentally investigated. Micro-flotation studies indicated that initially introducing Fe2+ markedly deteriorated the floatability of cerussite when employing a Na2S-KIX system. Analyses of using Xray photoelectron spectroscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer, ultraviolet visible spectroscopy, and zeta potential determinations demonstrated that the active sites on the cerussite surfaces were reduced due to Fe2+ and its hydrophilic derivatives. This effect, in turn, decreased the numbers of highly reactive S-based sulfidization products and attenuated the subsequent interaction of collector with cerussite, thus inhibiting the flotation performance of cerussite.