Selective Separation
Flotation of Metallic Ores – an Overview, Part 1
Quelle/Source: www.substech.com; www.web.nmsu.edu
Quelle/Source: A.M. Gaudin
(Quelle/Source: Gaudin, Hoover & Southwestern Eng. Corp.
Summary: This paper reviews the application of flotation technology with regard to the processing of metal ores. The first part of the article gives a more detailed introduction to the principles, reagents and apparatuses in the past and now. The second part to be published in the following issue of the journal provides metal ores being classified due to their mineral and chemical characteristics and processing examples, referring to various mineral processing plants worldwide.
1 Introduction
Global supplies of mineral resources, even the industrial development extending throughout the 20th century up into our own time, would scarcely have been possible without flotation, which remains even now the most important separation process for the fine-particle range. Without this technology, resources such as the metals copper, zinc, lead, nickel and even iron would not have been available in quantities sufficient for industrial purposes. Other widely used separation processes, based, in particular, on density, magnetic properties or colour, are not capable of selective...
