METHOD OF FOAM SEPARATION AND FLOTATION Russian patent published in 1998 - IPC

FIELD: mineral concentration, in particular, flotation, methods of mineral concentration; may be used in treatment of metallic and nonmetallic minerals. SUBSTANCE: conditioned raw material is fed after mechanical activation of useful component particles under conditions of attrition with simultaneous thermal treatment by high-temperature flow of liquid, overheated steam or hot air. Preliminarily introduced into treatment media are oily substances or surfactants. Intensive attrition is carried out with use of water or surfactant solution which is subjected to electromechanical treatment in electrolyzer directly before their supply to process of intensive grinding. Raw material is conditioned with reagents and use of surfactants and oily substances and by fractionating of raw material by size. Each product is conditioned by mixing with aerohydraulic mixture of water, air, surfactants and oily substances. Then product of medium size is supplied for separation in pulp body from bottom upward in its central part. Fine-grained product is supplied in distributed form over periphery part and at some angle to it. Liquid phase from dewatering of cell product is supplied with coarse medium-sized and fine products. Liquid phase from dewatering of foam product is supplied in the form of pressure water for preparation of water aerohydraulic mixture of air, surfactants and oily substances with subsequent introduction of obtained mixture for contidioning of initial products with reagents. Supplied onto foam layer is coarse product. After conditioning of coarse product, excessive pulp liquid phase and reagent mixture are transferred into fine-grained product. Attrition of barren rock particles is effected during their compression by moving material layers under the action of material to be ground of high-temperature flow of liquid, overheated steam or hot air. EFFECT: higher efficiency. 3 cl, 8 dwg