Home – Home – Jornals – Journal of Mining Sciences 2021 number 2

The flowchart is developed for gold ore flotation at the reduced impurity of the rougher flotation product with difficult middlings. The rougher flotation concentrate is subjected to scavenging by aerated air and hot steam mixture. In cold pulp slurry, the steam condensation heat is removed from bubbles to wetting films. With increasing temperature, the hydrophilic repulsive forces, that stabilize the films, can be reduced to excess osmotic pressure between the hydrophilic surfaces, and the instability of the films between the hydrophobic surfaces can be reduced to excess osmotic pressure of surrounding water, i.e. to the hydrophobic attraction forces. The test machine is designed to measure heat-transfer coefficients during aeration of water by air-steam mixture. The revealed heat loss patterns enable determining the efficient steam flow to ensure water heating in the interfacial layers of bubbles at the minimized loss of the heat source. Using an ore sample, it is demonstrated that it is possible to enhance gold recovery using the designed circuit of rougher flotation and the method of rougher concentrate scavenging.