A novel green depressant for flotation separation of scheelite from calcite

Polyaspartic acid (PASP) was used as a novel environmental-friendly depressant, and its inhibition effect on flotation performance of scheelite and calcite using sodium oleate (NaOL) as a collector was investigated by ways of flotation experiments, zeta potential measurement, contact angle measurement and infrared spectroscopic analysis (IR). The results show that PASP exhibits stronger inhibition capability and selectivity than acidified water glass, and the flotation separation of scheelite from calcite can be realized in the presence of 6 mg/L PASP and 20 mg/L NaOL at pH>6. In the presence of PASP, the zeta potential of calcite surface almost keeps unchanged after adding NaOL, and the contact angle decreases sharply. Therefore, it is indicated that PASP significantly decreases the adsorption of NaOL on calcite surface. By contrast, it has no distinct effect on the adsorption of NaOL on the scheelite surface, which is further confirmed by IR results.