Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
Automatic Control of Flotation Columns
Rene del Villar, Andre Desbiens, Miguel Maldonado, Jocelyn Bouchard
Abstract Since their first commercial application for mineral separation in the early
1980s, flotation columns have become a standard piece of equipment in mineral
concentrators particularly for cleaning operations. This chapter presents and dis-
cusses the most recent advances in instrumentation and automatic control of flota-
tion columns. It also examines how current industrial practice could benefit from
recent academic developments in these areas. A particular emphasis is placed on the
development of specific sensors for the continuous monitoring of process operations
and their regulation.
6.1 Introduction
Flotation is a commonly used method for separating valuable minerals (metal con-
taining) from useless mineral (gangue). It consists in injecting air bubbles in a vessel
where a finely ground mixture of minerals (ore) is also introduced as a slurry. Parti-
cles are maintained in suspension by means of an agitator in the so-called mechani-
cal cells, and by a rising flow of bubbles in column-cells. If valuable mineral parti-
cles are adequately conditioned (hydrophobicized), they should attach to the rising
bubbles forming bubble-solid aggregates and move up as result of the difference
in specific gravity between pulp and mineralized bubbles. These aggregates finally
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