EVALUATION OF DISPERSION IN THE SLIDING AND PHOSPHATE ORE FLOTATION
Dispersal. Slimming. Flotation. Phosphate ore.
One of the steps in phosphatic ore processing is desliming, which aims to remove fines and sludge from the ore, whether natural or generated by comminution processes. It is known that the presence of fines can cause numerous problems in the flotation stage, such as the increased use of reagents and the coating of coarse particles by fines (slime coating). It is important to seek optimization of desliming and flotation to achieve better results and this can be done through dispersion. Within this context, the present work is justified by the numerous benefits brought by the eliminatin of very fine particles, taking into account the increase in selectivity, increase in P2O5 recovery, the decrease in the amount of reagents and the increase in the efficiency of the desliming step. In addition, its general objective is to analyze the influence of dispersion on the desliming and flotation of phosphatic ore and, for specific purposes, the comparison of dispersants and pH values, by calculating the degree of dispersion and recovery in the flotation operation. Flotation tests will be carried out; desliming combined with flotation; dispersion combined with desliming and flotation; and dispersion combined with flotation, using a phosphate ore sample foram a company located in the Alto Paraníba region in Minas Gerais. The dispersion tests will be carried out using a dispersion tube and with the aid of Minitab software to randomize the order of the tests, the desliming will be carried out using a settling tank and the flotation will be carried out in a mechanical cell.