Surface Chemistry of Flotation

Abstract

Flotation technology is widely used to recover and concentrate minerals from the ores. The technique involves, inducing surface hydrophobicity to a mineral selectively and collect the same through air bubbles from aqueous phase. For the efficient design of flotation processes and equipment, an in-depth understanding of hydrophobic hydration of floatable mineral particles is essential. The different theories associated with and the underlying mechanisms are surveyed in this paper.