The Study On The Relationship Between The Surface Characteristics And Flotability Of Wolframite

Currently wolframite recovery in mine mainly adopts gravity process, but becausewolframite is crisp and easy to crush, producing a large number of particles whose granularityis smaller than the lower limit for granularity of gravity separation process, causing about20%of wolframite losses in the tailings because of their superfine particle size. Flotation isone of the effective methods recovering of fine grain of wolframite, but the key of flotation isto find out the surface features of wolframite, according to which the optimal flotationtechnology and efficient collector and activator can be chose. Paper studied the influence ofsurface electricity, wolframite surface dissolved components, surface concentration ofmanganese and iron atoms, surface composition and grinding method of wolframite onflotation and analyzed the reason and mechanism of flotation difference of wolframite, inthese surface conditions.The differences of flotation behavior of wolframite was studied in single mineralexperiments under different pH, ratios of iron and manganese, metal ions and grindingmethods. The study found that the best flotation pH of wolframite is6~10and betterflotation appeared in low ration of iron and manganese and only Pb2+can obviously activeflotation of wolframite in the Pb2+, Al3+, Fe3+, Mg2+, Ca2+five kind of metal ions andwolframite flotability is better in steel ball milling than that in the alumina ceramic ballmilling.Test analysis and flotation solution chemistry research such as adsorption of agent,infrared spectrum, EDS, SEM and XPS were performed. The reason why flotation ofwolframite is best in pH=6~10is that positioning ions Mn2+, Fe2+dissolved from the surfaceis advantageous to the electrostatic adsorption and chemical adsorption of agents onwolframite in negative Zeta potential of wolframite. Wolframite with high content ofmanganese has better flotability because low ratio of iron and manganese has more Mn2+which is active particle with agentia. Active component PbOH+and Pb (OH)2(s)in Pb2+solution deposit on the surface of wolframite, changing the wolframite surface composition,improving the adsorption of agentia on wolframite surface and flotation effect. The differencebetween the two grinding methods is due that alumina ceramic balls produce a large numberof floc, hindering the adsorption of reagent on mineral surface, worsening the flotation effect.