Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

Professor Jan Cilliers

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Chair in Mineral Processing
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7360j.j.cilliers

 
 
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Location

 

RSM 1.46BRoyal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@inproceedings{Morrison:2019,
author = {Morrison, A and Brito-Parada, P and Cilliers, J},
pages = {1739--1747},
title = {Developing a design modification for improved froth flotation performance through minimising turbulence at the pulp-froth interface},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The separation of valuable and gangue minerals according to their surface hydrophobicity in a froth flotation tank occurs in both its pulp and froth phases. In the pulp phase, hydrophobic particles must be brought into contact with rising bubbles introduced at or near the bottom of the tank. In a mechanical froth flotation tank, this is primarily achieved through the agitation of the pulp by an impeller or by a rotor-stator system. However, the turbulent and mixing effects of such an impeller or rotor-stator system, necessary to promote bubble-particle interactions in the pulp, are not confined to the pulp zone, but are transmitted into the froth zone at the pulp-froth interface. This impeller-induced turbulence at the pulp-froth interface is compounded by the impulse of buoyant bubbles entering the base of the froth phase, reducing the stability, and thus separation performance, of the resulting froth. Hence, turbulence improves separation performance if it occurs deep in the pulp phase, but diminishes it if it occurs close to the pulp-froth interface. For this work, a performance-enhancing pulp phase insert was designed to isolate the impeller-induced turbulence from the pulp-froth interface in a laboratory-scale, continuously-operated froth flotation tank. The result was a shifted grade-recovery curve that allows the insert to be designed to maximize the recovery from the system without sacrificing the grade of the concentrate, or vice versa, along a spectrum of improved performance. This paper will present the insert design and development process that resulted in this improved grade-recovery curve, as well as a set of heuristics that could be used to design a similar insert for pilot- and industrial-scale validation and deployment.
AU  - Morrison,A
AU  - Brito-Parada,P
AU  - Cilliers,J
EP  - 1747
PY  - 2019///
SP  - 1739
TI  - Developing a design modification for improved froth flotation performance through minimising turbulence at the pulp-froth interface
ER  -
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