Fatty Acid Flotation of Calcareous Phosphate Rock Using Enzymes for a Selective Separation

摘要

Recently, research efforts have been made to lower the magnesium content of phosphate rock concentrate to be a suitable feed for phosphoric acid production and other related industries. Among these efforts is the biopro-cessing technique. However, this study is devoted to study of using an enzyme, extracted from coffee waste, as a surface modifier during the fatty acid flotation of calcareous phosphate rock. A mixture of oleic acid and kerosene was used as collector. Factors, which affect the enzyme activity such as enzyme dosage, solution pH, temperature and conditioning time, were studied. Under the appropriate conditions, a concentrate product containing less than 0.60% MgO was achieved from the Abu Tartur feed (1.80% MgO) with a P_2O_5 recovery of more than 94%.