The Application and Development of Microbubble Column Flotation Technology in China

Since the early 1980s, great progress has been made in microbubble column flotation technology. As one of the important mineral processing methods, the application and development of this technology in China are summarized in this paper from four respects. Firstly, a patented cyclone-static microbubble separation method was proposed to overcome the notable problems mentioned in the previous flotation columns. Secondly, microbuble column flotation was introduced to separate the high ash as well hard-to-separate coal slime generated from dense medium processes. The characteristics of the microbubble column, and the flotation process for fine coal and the high ash coal separation was analyzed. Thirdly, the application of microbubble column flotation in China was detailed introduced, especially the characteristics of series microbubble column flotation equipment, and efficient column type coal slime separation crafts were discussed. The application of microbubble column flotation particularly in low ash content coal preparation, and discarded coal slime processing technology were presented. Finally, microbubble column flotation has been extended to non-coal mineral processing, such as magnetite concentrate upgrading (concentration iron and removing silicon), sulfide copper mine separation, white tungsten flotation, etc., the related research was briefly introduced in this paper as well.