Characterisation of surface roughness and wettability of salt-type minerals: calcite and barite

Abstract

Salt-type minerals of calcium (calcite) and barium (barite) are important raw materials for metallurgical. chemical and algricultural industries. Flotation is the primary process for recovering these minerals from ores. This study, reports the determination of the sit face roughness and wettability characteristics of these salt-type minerals ground in ball, rod and autogenous mills. Sin-face roughness values of these minerals have been expressed by the calculated surface roughness (R-BET)factors based on BET (Brunauer-Emmett-Teller) surface area measurements. The wettability characteristics (gamma(C)) of these minerals gound by three different mills were also determined by a microflotation technique using the EMDEE MicroFlot agitator Finally signi correlations were found between the surface roughness (R-BET) wettability; (gamma(C)) characteristics. The results revealed that the gamma(C) values increase with increasing R BET values. This means that if a mineral has lower surface roughness value, it will float better with lower gamma(c) value that indicates more hydrophobic character The empirical relationships could be stated as gamma(C) = a x R-BET + b type of equations: where a and b are constants. (C) 2004 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Published by Maney on behalf of the Institutes.