Flotation Technologies for the Future

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2014) | Viewed by 7866

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mining Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Interests: mechanical flotation machines; automation and control of mining; mineral processing operations; energy consumption in mining and mineral processing

E-Mail
Guest Editor
FLSmidth Salt Lake City, Inc., Midvale, UT 84047, USA
Interests: industrial flotation process and equipment; new product development; laboratory, industrial and in-plant testing; technology commercialization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Froth flotation continues to play a significant role in recovery of the minerals required for improvement of the human condition. While the theoretical basis of the technology continues to be the subject of interesting academic research, greater benefits will likely be obtained by improvements in the application of technology to the process itself. Thought progress in recent years has consisted mainly of dramatic increases in the size of mechanical flotation machines, some innovative designs have shown excellent performance in specific applications.

The goal of this special issue is to investigate and document current thinking in the future of flotation technology, considering improvements and innovation in machine design, circuit design, control, and automation. Discussion of existing or new alternatives to the standard mechanical machines is especially desired. We also seek to address important issue of energy consumption in flotation plants, in relation to upstream and downstream processes, and the broader concept of how to improve flotation plants in the broader context of sustainability. Finally, we also hope to examine the future of flotation technology in the light of the challenges anticipated, such as increasing water and energy costs and decreasing ore grades.

Prof. Dr. Michael G. Nelson
Dr. Dariusz Lelinski
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.


Keywords

  • flotation machines
  • jet flotation
  • flotation technology
  • flotation circuit design
  • flotation automation and control
  • flotation energy consumption
  • sustainable (“green”) flotation technology
  • industrial flotation testing
  • flotation plant optimization
  • flotation mineralogy
  • flotation plant surveys

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

4018 KiB  
Article
Numerical Simulations of Two-Phase Flow in a Self-Aerated Flotation Machine and Kinetics Modeling
by Hassan Fayed and Saad Ragab
Minerals 2015, 5(2), 164-188; https://doi.org/10.3390/min5020164 - 30 Mar 2015
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 7388
Abstract
A new boundary condition treatment has been devised for two-phase flow numerical simulations in a self-aerated minerals flotation machine and applied to a Wemco 0.8 m3 pilot cell. Airflow rate is not specified a priori but is predicted by the simulations as [...] Read more.
A new boundary condition treatment has been devised for two-phase flow numerical simulations in a self-aerated minerals flotation machine and applied to a Wemco 0.8 m3 pilot cell. Airflow rate is not specified a priori but is predicted by the simulations as well as power consumption. Time-dependent simulations of two-phase flow in flotation machines are essential to understanding flow behavior and physics in self-aerated machines such as the Wemco machines. In this paper, simulations have been conducted for three different uniform bubble sizes (db = 0.5, 0.7 and 1.0 mm) to study the effects of bubble size on air holdup and hydrodynamics in Wemco pilot cells. Moreover, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based flotation model has been developed to predict the pulp recovery rate of minerals from a flotation cell for different bubble sizes, different particle sizes and particle size distribution. The model uses a first-order rate equation, where models for probabilities of collision, adhesion and stabilization and collisions frequency estimated by Zaitchik-2010 model are used for the calculation of rate constant. Spatial distributions of dissipation rate and air volume fraction (also called void fraction) determined by the two-phase simulations are the input for the flotation kinetics model. The average pulp recovery rate has been calculated locally for different uniform bubble and particle diameters. The CFD-based flotation kinetics model is also used to predict pulp recovery rate in the presence of particle size distribution. Particle number density pdf and the data generated for single particle size are used to compute the recovery rate for a specific mean particle diameter. Our computational model gives a figure of merit for the recovery rate of a flotation machine, and as such can be used to assess incremental design improvements as well as design of new machines. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Flotation Technologies for the Future)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop