Effect of ethylenediamine on smithsonite flotation

Abstract

Smithsonite, a typical zinc oxide mineral, has been developed for many years as an alternative source. However, restricted to inferior ability of floating, zinc oxide is one well-known refractory mineral with poor selectivity and high regent consumption. In this paper, ethylenediamine (NH2CH2CH2NH2) was selected to active flotation of smithsonite using dodecylamine as collector. The effect of ethylenediamine on flotation efficiency was conducted; the results showed that without addition of ethylenediamine, the recovery of smithsonite was only 32.85% when the usage of dodecylamine-hydrochloride as collector was 5 × 10−4 mol/L. The optimum dosage of ethylenediamine was 6 × 10−3 mol/L and flotation recovery could be obviously improved to 92% under the same usage of collector. This finding may promote the recovery of refractory zinc oxide mineral resource in future.