A new experimental approach to evaluate coal particles floatability: Bubble-particle attachment and detachment kinetics

Abstract

Coal floatability evaluation is of vital importance in the prediction of flotation results and the design of a flotation flowsheet. In this work, a new experimental approach based on bubble-particle attachment kinetics (BPAK) and bubble-particle detachment kinetics (BPDK) were proposed to evaluate the floatability of coal particles. During attachment and detachment processes, a variation of coating angles θ(t) for different density coal particles were measured and fitted to a first-order model. Modified attachment rate constant ka*and modified detachment rate constant kd*were used as yardsticks of floatability. For comparison, flotation kinetics, induction time, and contact angle measurements were also conducted. A consistent sequence of floatability was obtained as: -1.4 > 1.4-1.6 > +1.6 g/cm3. The modified flotation rate constant k*obtained in flotation kinetics was used as a yardstick to assess the accuracy of floatability evaluation methods. By individually fitting k*to parameters obtained in other tests, a simple and close linear relationship between k*and modified attachment rate constant ka*was established, rather than 1/kd*in BPDK tests, induction time tind, or (1 - cosα) in contact angle measurements. Consequently, ka*is thought to be a better criterion as k*could be quantitatively predicted by BPAK tests. Throughout this work, BPAK is an effective method to evaluate coal floatability.