Research on the Interaction of Humic Acid with Iron Minerals

摘要

Binder is indispensable in the production of iron ore pellets and the quality of pellets seems to be related to the interactions between binders and iron minerals. Humic acid is proved a suitable binder for iron ore pelletizing. In this paper, the interactions between humic acid and iron minerals were investigated by adsorption experiments and molecular dynamic simulations. Adsorption experimental results show that the adsorption of humic acid on hematite is easier than that on magnetite, and the maximum adsorption capacities of humic acid on hematite and magnetite reach 17.1, 7.39 mg/g, respectively. The results of adsorption isotherms indicate that the Langmuir model provides the best correlation of the experimental data, while the thermodynamics results demonstrate that the adsorption process is a spontaneous exothermic process. Molecular dynamic simulations reveal that the interaction between hematite and humic acid is stronger than that between humic acid and magnetite.