STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF COLLECTOR TYPE AND COLLECTOR MIXING IN COAL FLOTATION

摘要

Coal is still one of the principal sources of energy. Production of fine coal has been increased today as a result of highly mechanized methods and greater size reduction needed to liberate impurities from lower quality deposits. The processing of fine particles is a very well documented problem and still constitutes a challenge for mineral processing engineers. Froth flotation is the most applied technique, but it is sometimes ineffective due to loss of recovery as a result of decreased flotation rate and loss of selectivity due to the entertainment of fine gangue particles. This study investigates the effect of different collector types on coal flotation, and represents an attempt to improve it by collector mixing. Promising results were obtained, in particular, with low rank coals which are characterized by poor flotation response.