Experimental study on Flotation of a quartz fluorite ore with a mixed collector

In a quartz type fluorite deposit in Jiangxi Province, most of the fluorite is closely associated with quartz, causing difficulty in monomer dissociation, which affects mineral separation indicators. The grade of CaF2 in the ore is 67.86%, and the contents of SiO2, CaO and Al2O3 are high, which are 19.04%, 5.91% and 3.32% respectively. This shows that the vein stone in the ore is mainly quartz and silicate minerals, and the content of other components is less. This paper explores the flotation effect of a mixed collector of sodium oleate (NaOl) and tert dodecyl mercaptan (TDM) on quartz fluorite ore. The flotation results show that the mixed collector has the best collection performance for fluorite when the pulp pH is 9.5 and the molar ratio of NaOl to TDM is 8:2. A high-grade fluorite concentrate with CaF2 grade of 94.06% and recovery rate of 99.55% can be obtained through the full closed-circuit process of 1 coarse, 4 fine and 3 sweeping. The surface tension tests of the collector show that the CMC value of the mixed collector was slightly less than that of NaOl and the molecular arrangement of the mixed collector is closer than that of NaOl. Therefore, compared with NaOl, the mixed collector can better change the hydrophobic capacity of mineral surface. The above research results can provide a basis for the effective recovery and utilization of quartz fluorite ore with fine particle size.