Synopsis

The black mountain ore is rich in copper, iron and silicon. If for example copper is desired over
iron and silicon, flotation separation method can be used. The solid particles of the ore must be
grinded to 75 micro-meter. The specific gravity of the mixture before flotation is 2.2971. The
mixture is mixed with water and it is introduced into the Denver flotation cell. Denver flotation
cell take advantage in wettability at the solid particles. The Denver uses air bubbles to separate
wet able solid from non-wet able solid be particles. Non wet able materials form a froth layer
on top of the solution. The froth is recovered from top of the solution using scrapers. The froth
is dried and its specific density is measured. The density of froth and tailings is greater than the
density of black mountain ore. The froth is a mixture of copper and other trace materials. The
specific gravity is not affected by weight and time intervals. Copper can be collected using more
than one collectors and frothers is always used to stabilize the bubbles. In this practical the
froth is beta froth 4666.

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I hereby to declare that I Reginald Mongwe I have met the requirements for assessment
regulations and declare that there is no plagiarism of any kind involve in completing this report.
The books or documents cited in this report can be found on the reference list

Signature

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I would like to say thanks to the University of Johannesburg for providing me with a Wi-Fi, a
good laboratory and best laboratory assistance. Without it was not going to finish this report, I
would also like to think my group mates who helped during the practical.

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Table of contents
PAGE
Synopsis..1

Declaration and Acknowledgment..2 and 3

1 introduction..5
2 Experiment procedure.7
3 Results.8
4 Discussion10
5 Conclusion14
6 Recommendations15

7 References..16
8 Appendices.17

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Introduction
Naturally the mined minerals contain the mixture of different particles. To obtain our desirable
mineral one have to separate the particles of desirable mineral from particles of undesirable
minerals. Separation can be done using different method. If the particles are solid and there is
no fluid. The preferred separation method is flotation.
Flotation is a separation method which is used to separate hydrophilic solid-particles from
hydrophobic solid particles. It take advantage of different I wettability of solid particles
surfaces. Solid particles that are capable of dissolving in water are called hydrophilic and solid
particles that cannot dissolve in water are called hydrophobic particles. Hydrophobic particles
are aerophilic, they are attracted to air interface. The wet-ability or the dissolvability of a solid
particle is inverse proportional to the surface area of the solid particle. To increase the
dissolvability and wet-ability of solid particles, one need to grind the particles of the minerals to
below 100 m particle sizes.
Figure: 1

The minimum particle size limit for flotation is 35 m. The mixture of solid particles ranging
between 35 m and 100 m in size is mixed with water in a container that can let air inside the
solid particles mixture like the one in figure 1. In the water, the hydrophilic particles dissolve
and hydrophobic do not dissolve at all. Air is feeder into the water, because air is less dense
than water it will experience buoyancy force from water. The buoyancy force will up-lift air.
Hydrophobic particles are attracted to air, thus they will be up-lifted along with air. The air and
hydrophobic particles will float on top of water.
Mineral recovering
Hydrophilic minerals are now separated from hydrophobic minerals, however, before the
desirable mineral is recovered, one need to know if the desirable mineral is hydrophilic or
hydrophobic. Previous researches shows that the desirable mineral is mostly a hydrophobic and

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we can more than one hydrophobias in a solid particles mixture. Flotation involves a lot of
complicated procedures. In this report we will try to understand all the procedures and
common mistakes encountered while doing a flotation experiment.

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Experimental Procedure
Before one starts with the experiment, they must make sure they have a PH calibrated,
reagent, labeled pans, stopwatch, scrapers, wash bottlers, filter paper, rod mill, rotatory
splitter. Specific gravity meter, john spinning riffle and Denver flotation cell.
One must weigh 2 kg of black mountain ore and split into two 2x1 kg of sample of ore using
john jones spinning riffle. If the black mountain ore is not grinded one must feed one kg to a
rod mill with 13 rods and grind it for 48 minutes and screen the sample. The sample must be 75
m. One must take l kg of grinded black mountain ore and split it into 10x100 g using a rotary
splitter.100 gram of Black Mountain ore is further split into 10x10g using a small rotary splitter.
One must take prepared 10 gram of black mountain or and determine the specific gravity (sg)
using a specific gravity meter. After measuring the specific gravity, all the samples is combined
to recreate the 1 kg. The 1 kg of ore is added to the Denver floatation cell, brushing any solids
off the rods is a necessity. 2 liter is also added to correct level into the Denver flotation cell.
The agitator is lowered into the float cell. The speed of an agitator must be kept on 1200 rpm
and agitate until the black mountain ore is well mixed with its self and water.
The PH of the solution must be 9.5, if the PH is less than 9.5 lime is added to adjust the PH.
0.0500 of copper (ll) sulfate is added to the solution and it is allow to react with the solution for
5 minutes. After 5 minutes 0.0503 of xanthate is added and it is allowed to react with the
solution for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes 1 ml of beta froth 466 is added to the solution and it is
allowed to react with the solution for 30 seconds. After the addition of the reagent mentioned
above, the speed of agitator is increased to 1800 rpm. The air in let valve is gradually opened
until the froth covers the cell surface. The froth is continuous collected in to four pans for 2
minutes in each pan.

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Results
Below is the table of results of experiment done by university of Johannesburg, chemical
engineering group 5 on 24 January at Doornfontein campus.
Table: 1

Specific gravity
Time(minutes) Dry Grinding Weight
Feed (before Flotation) 2,2971 9,51
Concentration (After flotation) 2 4,2884 2,75
4 4,4387 6,88
6 3,67 4,5475
8 4,4722 0,86
Tailings 8,84 4,3516

The weight of the black mountain ore is greater than the weight of concentration after
flotation. The specific gravity of hydrophobic and hydrophilic solid-particles making up black
mountain ore is less than the specific gravity of hydrophobic solid particles.
Below is the line graph illustrating the relationship between the weights of hydrophobic solid
particles and specific gravity.
Figure: 3

specific gravity
5
4.4722 4.4387
4.2884
4.5
4 3.67
3.5
SPECIFC GRAVITY

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.86 2.75 4.5475 6.88
WEIGHT

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Line graph of specific gravity V.S time of dry grinds of black mountain ore after floatation.
Figure: 4

specific gravity
5
4.5
4
3.5
SPECIC GRAVITY

3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
2 4 6 8
TIME(MIN)

specific gravity

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Discussion
The black mountain ore have a higher composition of iron and silicon. Copper is available in
small quantity. The black mountain ore also contain metals like lead and zinc.
TABLE 2
Composition of black mountain ore
components percentage Specific gravity
Copper 0.341 8.95
Iron 28.337 7.03
Lead 3.559 11.34
Silicon 11.439 2.33
Zinc 3.106 6.9
Hematite 40.371 4.9

The specific gravity of the black mountain ore is 2.297. 9, 51 g sample of the black mountain ore
it is put into the specific gravity meter to calculate specific gravity of the mixture before
flotation. After flotation, hydrophobic materials is dried and grinded, its specific gravity is
slightly different for different weight of sample that have been collected for every 2 minutes.
Referee to figure 2. The specific gravity of concentration or hydrophobic solid particles is
determined by calculating the mean of specific gravity of weights of samples that was collected
in two minutes interval.

=

Where = mean, n= number of specific gravity after flotation and x= sum of specific gravities.
16.8693
= 4

=4.2
The calculation of sum of specific gravity is given on the appendix.
The specific gravity of the hydrophobic solid particles after flotation is 4.2. The other important
measurement that was done, it is the calculation of specific graphite of the tailing. In flotation,
tailings is the hydrophilic solid particles that is less or not affected by the collectors. The tailing
is almost 9 times denser than water. Water is used as of reference when calculating the specific
gravity of all substance. For example the specific gravity of tailings is 8.84, to calculate the
density of the tailing, the fact that specific gravity is relative to the density water is used.

Specific gravity=

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= density of water which is 1ooo kg/m3 and = density of substance that its
density is not known.
From above equation the density of tailing can be given as tailings=8.841000 which is equal
8840 kg/m3.
From table: 1 and table: 2 it can be concluded that the concentrate have a composition of more
than one metal. It can also be conclude that the collector can collect more than one
hydrophobias minerals. The tailings is also a composition of more than one composition, even
though the specific gravity of the tailing is almost the same as the specific gravity of the
copper.it is known xanthate favors the froth of copper. It can be assured that there is less
copper composition in the tailing, it can be also be proven that the tailings it contains more
iron. Iron cannot be froth by xanthate.

For flotation to take place the black mountain ore particles must be reduced 75 micro-meter by
crushing and grinding so that the mixture of solid particles exist as physically separate grains.
The grains can be easily be attached to bubbles that are formed that in float cell. The particles
must be screened before the sample is put in to Denver flotation cell. The sample can pass the
screening test if 60 % of the particles meet 75 micro-meter standard.

The screeners have different pour sizes. For flotation 75 micro-meter is used. If more than 40 %
of the grinded sample fail to pass through. The sample must undergo grinding process until the
standard is met.
Dry grinding decrease the surface area of the particles, thus increase the rate of reaction.

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It is important that the size of solid particles be 75 micro-meter. If the particles are insufficient
grinded, it means there will be bulks in the system. The bulks cannot be attached to the air
bubbles. Heavy bulks cannot be lifted. The agitator will fail to mix the mixture of solid particles
with water to form a solution. On the other side if the particles are over-grinded, they will for a
colloids when mixed water. Flotation separating method cannot separate the particles of
colloids from the solvent.
Inside the rod mill, a rotating drum causes friction and attrition between steel rods and ore
particles. The velocity of the rotary drum and the number rods in the drum determine the size
particle of the ore that is grinded, if the velocity is too high and there is more number of rods in
the drum the particles of the ore will be too small.

In flotation separating method three reactants are used. In this case 0.00500 g of copper (ii)
sulfate, 0.00503 xanthate and 1 ml of Betafroth 466. Xanthate is one of the examples of the
collectors. The collector is a chemical substance that react with a solid particle to make it
hydrophobic, in other word the collector attach the desired materials to bubbles. There are
some metals ore that are hydrophobic in nature, thus the collector is not always added to
floating or a little can be added. It depend on the nature of the mineral. The collectors
specialize. For example a xanthate cannot react with iron to make it hydrophobic. The
effectiveness of the collectors is affected by the pH of the mixture that is why it is important to
add lime until the desired pH id reached.
Table 3
Common thiocolllectors and their uses

Collector pH Uses
xanthates 8-13 Flotation of sulfides, oxidized minerals
Aerofloats 4-12 Selective flotation of copper sulfides from pyrite
Dialkyl dithiocarnamate 5-12 Similar properties to xanthate but expensive
Isopropyl thiocaramate 4-9 Selective flotation of copper sulfide from pyrite
Mercaptobenzothiazole 4-9 Oxidized lead and copper minerals

0.00500 g of copper (ii) sulfate is added to start the reaction and 1 ml of added to betafroth
466. A betafroth 466 is a frother. The bubbles in the floating cells it is natural produced in
higher flow rates. The float can over flow, or the bubbles produced ca be destroyed as they
collide with one another. To avoid the overflow and poor bubbles, the bubbles must be
stabilize. The betafroth 466 stables the bubbles. For a froth to stables the bubbles its must be in
a certain pH. Betafroth works best on the pH of 9.5.
From the graph of specific gravity vs time (figure 3) and specific gravity vs weigh (figure: 1), the
values of specific gravity is almost the same for every 2 minutes interval and different weight.

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This is expected because a density of the same solid particles under the same condition must be
the same.
From table 1, the specific gravity at 6 minutes is much different from the specific gravity of the
other minutes. This can be the result of deepening the scrapers to flotation cells. The sample at
6 minutes may have hydrophilic materials on it. The result might be affected by the fact that
the sample used to measure specific gravity is 9.51 g instead of 10 g.

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Conclusion
In conclusion the specific gravity of the solid is not affected by weight. There can be more than
one hydrophobic solid particles in the mixture. Metal have special collector that can attach it to
a bubbles and metals that are not hydrophobic in nature can be altered to be hydrophobic.
Frother is used to stabilize the bubbles of air. When doing flotation it is important to know your
reagent and a standard particle size of the sample.

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Recommendations
The ball mill most be use instead of rod mill. Ball mall is effective than rod mill.

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List of reference
1 Muzeda, E. (2010). An Investigation into the effect of water quality of flotation
performance. Author & World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology. Available
from: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/10732 (Accessed 4 March2017).
2 Adeshina, G.I., Ntuli, F., Mohamed B & Muzenda, E. (2012). Performance of Sodium
Mercaptobenzothiazole (NMBT) Collector on the Flotation of Black Mountain Ore. Available
from: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/10478 (Accessed 4 March 2017).
3 university of Johannesburg. (2017). Chemical engineering S-3 practical manul.

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Appendices
x= 4.2884+4.4387+3.67+4.4722
=16.8693
Picture of a rod mill.

Appendix B (abbreviations)
S.p specific gravity
g-grams
kg/m3- kilograms per meter cube

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