Determination of preferential adsorption of Depramin® on mineral surfaces by ToF-SIMS

Selective adsorption of mining chemicals on specific ore minerals is desirable for efficient flotation. This paper reports on a feasibility study to localise and visualise the distribution of Depramin((R)), a polymeric depressant, produced by Akzo Nobel on a real ore at realistic depressant loadings. The combined use of bulk and micro-analytical techniques has been very useful. Bulk mineralogy determination by XRD can be correlated with data obtained by the well-developed SEM/EDX technique for local quantitative mineral classification. Starting from that basis, the potential of local mineral classification by the less established, surface sensitive, technique ToF-SIMS has been demonstrated. Although this is a qualitative analysis technique, in addition to mineral classification, ToF-SIMS is also able to identify depressants locally on ore phases at realistic bulk concentrations. Bulk depletion analysis results serve to "quantify" the surface analytical ToF-SIMS spectra. Supporting advanced data analysis tools, including principal component analysis (PCA) and spectral image processing, are important for the analysis of the correlation between data obtained from different techniques. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.