SURFACE CHEMISTRY OF IRON ORE THROUGHOUT A PROCESSING PLANT

摘要

An extensive study was carried out to completely characterize the Zeta potential of an iron ore as it proceeded through a full-scale iron ore processing plant. This was done for two reasons: (1) to produce a ‘snapshot’ of the conditions during a period where the plant was performing correctly to provide a basis for comparison if the plant performance later changed; and (2) to determine how the actual surface chemistry of the ore particles in an operating plant differed from those reported in the literature for pure minerals under controlled conditions. From these results, it was seen that the actual Zeta potentials were much different than what had been assumed when the process was designed. Re-design of the processes to take into account the actual Zeta potentials of the ores being processed could potentially lead to significant process improvements, because zeta potential has a strong effect on particle-particle and particle-chemical interactions.