vi Contents

PART 9: Base Metal Flotation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Investigation of n-Octanohydroxamate Reagent Interaction with the Surface of
Oxide Copper Minerals and Copper Metal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
G.K. Parker, G.A. Hope, R. Woods, A. Numprasanthai, A.N. Buckley, J. McLean
Evaluation of Pyrite Flotation Efficiency Using Liberation-Limited Grade/Recovery Curves . . . . . . . . . 509
J.F. Medina, C.L. Lin, J.D. Miller
Ore Evaluation at Vale Base Metals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
Manqiu Xu
Respect Equals Recovery in Flotation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Alejandro Gamez, Fidel Saltijeral, Oscar Lopez, Sami Grönstrand

PART 10: Flotation Equipment and Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

From 10 Cubic Feet to 500 Cubic Meters―Observations on 100 Years of Flotation Technology. . . . . . . 539
Michael G. Nelson
Improved Fine Particle Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Devan Govender, Bartosz Dabrowski, Dariusz Lelinski, Harley Schreiber, Frank Traczyk
Comparison of Two Bubble Sizing Methods for Performance Evaluation of
Mechanical Flotation Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Sanja Miskovic, Gerald Luttrell
A Novel Approach to Flotation Cell Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
P.T.L. Koh, M.P. Schwarz
Turbulence Measurements in a Flotation Cell Using a Fast-Response Probe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Yihong Yang, Demetri Telionis
Cell Power Input or Hydrodynamics—Which Is More Important in Flotation?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Sami Grönstrand, Alejandro Yañez, Gijsbert Wierink, Juha Tiitinen
CFD Simulations of a Dorr-Oliver Flotation Cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Abdel-Halim Salem-Said, Hassan Fayed, Saad Ragab

PART 11: Process Reagents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Challenges in the Beneficiation of Complex Problematic Ores—Case Studies: Phosphates,
Sulphides, and Coal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617
P. Somasundaran, P. Patra, D.R. Nagaraj
Interfacial Chemistry Features of Selected Fluorite Surfaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
Xia Zhang, Xuming Wang, Xihui Yin, Hao Du, Jan D. Miller
Sulfonate Reagents for Processing Industrial Minerals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Guoxin Wang, Sam H. Sutherland, Zhengxing Gu
Second Generation of Slime Collectors for Potash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Jan-Olof Gustafsson
Applications of Custofloat Collectors in Processing Phosphate Ores from Different Countries . . . . . . . . 649
Guoxin Wang, Zhengxing Gu, Sam Sutherland
Versatile Uses of Alkyl Hydroxamate in Kaolin Beneficiation Technologies: Flotation, Selective
Flocculation, and Magnetic Separation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
S.A. Ravishankar, Sheng Jiang, Rajesh Raitani

PART 12: Modeling and Process Control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

Recent Advances in Modeling, Simulation, and Control of Mineral Processing Operations. . . . . . . . . . . 667
John A. Herbst, Brian Flintoff
Paradigm Shift in Advanced Control for Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
R.K. Jonas, I.A. Craw

© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.
 Contents vii

Selection of the Best Control Valve for Flotation Column and Flotation Cell Control,
and Choosing the Best Method of Controlling Thickener Underflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689
Todd Loudin
Modeling Ball Mills and Semi-Autogenous Mills with Impact Energy Spectra-Based
Population Balance Concept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
E. Tugcan Tuzcu, Raj K. Rajamani, Bharada Mishara
Development of a Model-Based Flotation Simulator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699
Kyle Kelley, Aaron Noble, Gerald Luttrell, Roe-Hoan Yoon
Dynamic Model-Based Flotation Performance Monitoring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709
Osvaldo Bascur
Use of a Chemical Transport Code for the Prediction of Gold Heap Leach Production. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719
Alexander A. Shchipansky, Jianwei Xiang, Robert J. Sterrett, Allen J. Schindler

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729

© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.
© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.
 Preface

The Mineral and Metallurgical Processing Division (MPD) of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and
Exploration, Inc. (SME), organized the International Symposium on “Separation Technologies for Minerals,
Coal, and Earth Resources” as part of the 2011 SME Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. The symposium
provided an international forum where leading scientists and engineers presented and discussed new develop-
ments pertaining to separation technologies for various earth resources.
The symposium was held in honor of Dr. Roe-Hoan Yoon for his lifelong dedication to all colleagues and
students, his leadership and directorship of the Center for Advanced Separation Technologies, and his scientific
contributions to the mining industry that have furthered the understanding of mineral and coal processing as
well as water and resource engineering.
Manuscripts were submitted for publication just prior to the meeting and were reviewed by the session
chairs and subsequently by the program organizers to ensure quality. A wide variety of subjects is covered
including Coal Processing, Surface Forces and Hydrophobicity, Process Improvements and Environmental
Controls, Dewatering and Drying, Gravity Separations, Industrial Minerals Flotation, Base Metal Flotation,
Flotation Equipment and Practice, Process Reagents, Magnetic and Electrostatic Separations, Modeling and
Process Control, and Resource Engineering.
This monograph is intended to provide new information not only for the processing of minerals and
coal as the more traditional earth resources but also to address current issues with new resources such as gas
hydrates, oil sands, secondary materials, metals, and the environment, particularly waste and process waters.
Not only does this information help companies develop earth resources more economically while simultane-
ously addressing factors ranging from sustainability to environmental stewardship, it also covers such diverse
topics that these proceedings are cross disciplinary and thereby offer solutions for one that could be applied to
others.

Section Editors

Surface Forces and Hydrophobicity Process Improvements and Environmental Controls

Liquang Wang and Anh Nguyen John Sabey and Corby Anderson

Dewatering and Drying Industrial Minerals Flotation

Ramazan Asmatulu and Barbara Arnold Michael Mankosa and Derek Novotny
aBase Metal Flotation
Coal Processing Jinhong Zhang and Michael Moats
Jaisen Kohmuench and Van Davis
Flotation Equipment and Practice
Gravity Separations Asa Weber and Paul Keyser
Rick Honaker and John Cole
Process Reagents
Magnetic and Electrostatic Separations S.A. Ravishankar and Guoxin Wang
Ian Sherrell and Tim Sheehan
Modeling and Process Control
Resource Engineering Mike Randolph and Tom Hildebrande
Zhenghe Xu and Jae Lee

ix

© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.
© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.
 A Biographical Sketch
Dr. Roe-Hoan Yoon

Roe-Hoan Yoon was born in 1943 and raised in Seoul, Korea. The Korean War broke out in 1950, interrupting
his grade-school education and leaving him with vivid memories of the war. After 6 years of secondary educa-
tion, he was admitted to Seoul National University, the premier institution of higher education in the country, to
study mining engineering. During a bus trip to his summer job at a coal mine in his sophomore year, he recalled
seeing a river contaminated with black coal fines. He did not understand why at the time, but he does now, after
years of efforts to eliminate the problem through technology development.
At college he was intrigued by the mineral processing classes offered by Professor Yeun-Shik Kim, who
had just returned from the United States after studying under Professor Iwao Iwasaki at the University of
Minnesota. Under Professor Kim’s advisement, Yoon took extra courses in chemistry. His passion, however,
was in music, which helped him obtain a position in the Marine Corp’s band to fulfill his mandatory military
service. He met Myungshin in his junior year, who became his wife and best friend of 42 years. They have
raised two children, Sora and Tehshik, both part of the faculty at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina)
and University of Wisconsin (Madison), respectively.
Upon graduation from the university, Yoon worked at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology
(KIST), studying the surface chemistry of layer-structured minerals under the tutelage of Dr. Jae-Hyun Oh and
Dr. Hyung-Sup Choi. Choi received his doctoral degree from University of Minnesota studying iron ore flota-
tion and was serving at the time as the director of KIST. Choi subsequently served as the minister of science
and technology under President Chung-Hee Park. He laid the foundation for the development of science and
technology in Korea, which propelled the country’s economic development.
Yoon left KIST in 1968 to study mineral processing at McGill University under Professor Talat Salman.
With a fellowship from the National Research Council, he studied the charging mechanisms of oxides and
hydroxides, adsorption thermodynamics, and developed a method of separating copper and cobalt from leach
liquor by precipitate flotation. A model developed to predict the points of zero charge of oxide minerals from
crystallographic information has a high citation index. Aside from his thesis work, Yoon learned the practical
aspects of base metals flotation and gold metallurgy from his advisor.
After graduation from McGill with Dean’s Honor, Yoon worked as a research scientist at the Canada
Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology, where he discovered that sulfide minerals cleaned of superfi-
cial oxidation products become hydrophobic and float without collector. This work received considerable

xi

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xii Biography

international attention, albeit with intense controversy concerning possible hydrophobic species responsible for
the collectorless flotation. The project continued at Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia) under financial support
from the National Science Foundation. The results obtained by Jerry Luttrell, who was pursuing his master’s
degree at the time and is currently teaching at Virginia Tech, showed that the metal polysulfides formed on the
surface during incipient oxidation were responsible for the collectorless flotation, as has since been proven by
other scientists using synchrotron x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
Yoon built a strong sulfide flotation research group at Virginia Tech, with the help of world-renowned
scientists such as Ron Woods, Paul Richardson, Noel Finkelstein, Jerzy Mielczarski, and Jaakko Leppinen.
Ron Woods visited the group for 14 consecutive years and Cytec provided financial support for nearly 20 years.
Many graduate students were trained in this area of research, including Mark Pritzker, Cesar Basilio, Courtney
Young, Dongsoo Kim, Dilo Paul, Sunny Chen, Joe Zachweija, Danniel Tao, Vincent Dieudonne, and others.
The group studied the mechanisms of sulfide mineral oxidation and collector adsorption by using various elec-
trochemical and spectroscopic methods and constructing mass-balanced Eh–pH diagrams.
When Yoon began his career at Virginia Tech, there was a serious concern that flotation becomes inef-
ficient with finer particles. Based on hydrodynamic studies, he advocated the benefits of using smaller air
bubbles (microbubbles) for flotation and developed the Microcel® column technology using in-line mixer
bubble generators, which has been successfully commercialized worldwide. During the course of developing
this technology, many outstanding graduate students were trained, including Mike Mankosa, Waverley Hale,
Van Davis, Asa Weber, Darrell Trigg, Paul Keyser, and Eric Yan, who have become industry leaders.
Professor Yoon thought that air bubbles in water may be hydrophobic in view of the interfacial tension
(72 mN/m) that is substantially higher than those (~50 mN/m) of hydrocarbons and suggested that flotation
is one of hydrophobic interaction. The thin film pressure balance (TFPB) studies conducted in his laboratory
provided evidence for the presence of hydrophobic forces in the thin films of water (TFW) confined between
air bubbles. The graduate students who worked on this research topic included Suha Aksoy, Liguang Wang, and
Ruija Wang. Professor Robert Pugh of KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) visited the
group for collaboration, and Professor H.J. Müller of the Max Planck Institute (Golm, Germany) and Professor
D. Exerowa of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia, Bulgaria) provided help with the experimental
technique.
Yoon’s group also measured the hydrophobic forces in the TFW confined between mineral surfaces hydro-
phobized by collector coating using the surface force apparatus and the atomic force microscope. It has been
found that hydrophobic forces increase with water contact angle (θ). The topic of hydrophobic force has been a
subject of intense controversy in the literature. It began with the Israelachvili and Pashley publication reporting
the first direct measurement of the short-range hydrophobic force between mica surfaces immersed in a cationic
surfactant solution (Nature 1982, 300:341). Many investigators confirmed their measurements, while others
showed that the “hydrophobic force” is due to the artifact of nanobubbles adhering on hydrophobic surfaces.
The interest in this topic stemmed from the possibility that it is possibly a new natural force, not considered
in the classical DLVO (Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek) theory, which had been revered as the “bible”
in colloid chemistry for the preceding 40 years. In 1961, Derjaguin and Duhkan attempted to model flotation
using the DLVO theory (Transactions of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy 1961, 70:221). However,
the results were inconsistent with flotation practice, because both of the DLVO forces—that is, double-layer
and van der Waals forces—are usually repulsive in the TFW (or wetting films) formed between hydrophobic
minerals and air bubbles. Laskowski and Kitchener recognized this problem and wrote that for a contact angle
to develop there should be a negative disjoining pressure in wetting films (Journal of Colloid and Interface
Science 1969, 16:63). The negative disjoining pressure arising from the hydrophobic force has been measured
directly by Pan, Jung, and Yoon using an air bubble as a probe to monitor the surface forces (Journal of Colloid
and Interface Science 2011, 361:321).
Recognizing that hydrophobic force may be the driving force for bubble–particle interaction, Yoon’s
group at Virginia Tech developed a flotation model from first principles. Initially, the model was developed
under laminar flow conditions to simplify the calculation of the hydrodynamic forces in flotation (Yoon and
Mao, Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 1996, 181:613). The model showed for the first time that flota-
tion rate increases with increasing contact angle. It also showed that the flotation rate constant (k) is propor-
tional to the surface area rate (Sb) and the probability (P) of bubble–particle attachment, which is referred to as
the kSP model. More recently, the model has been extended to turbulent flow conditions to relate the rate con-
stant to energy dissipation rate. A computer simulator developed on the basis of the turbulent flotation model
can now be used to design flotation circuits directly from mineral liberation characteristics, thereby avoiding
the difficulty of extracting information that can be used to design full-scale flotation circuits from laboratory

© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.
 Biography xiii

flotation data. The graduate students who contributed to the development of the model and simulator included
Laoquin Mao, Ian Scherrell, Brain Schimmoller, Hyunsun Do, Kyle Kelley, Aaron Noble, and Serhat Kelles.
Yoon’s group generated numerous publications on the measurement of hydrophobic forces between
collector-coated surfaces. Most recently, the measurements were conducted between gold surfaces hydropho-
bized with a long-chain (C16) alkyl thiol at different temperatures to monitor the changes in thermodynamic
functions. The results showed that both the excess entropy and enthalpy of the TFW decreases as two hydro-
phobic surfaces approach each other, which is contrary to the molecular-scale hydrophobic interaction (e.g.,
self-assembly). Further, the enthalpy term (ΔHf ) is slightly larger than the entropy term (TΔSf ) in magni-
tude in the macroscopic hydrophobic interaction (Wang et al., Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 2011,
361:321). This finding is opposite what is known of the molecular-scale hydrophobic interactions, which are
driven by entropy changes. These new findings suggest that the hydrophobic interactions at macroscopic scale
are caused by the changes in the structure of the TFW confined between hydrophobic surfaces. This suggestion
is consistent with the most recent findings that low-density liquid species are present in water at temperatures
as high as 300 K (Mallamace, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 2008, 105:12725). The graduate students who worked on various aspects of the surface force mea-
surements included Jorge Yordan, S.A. Ravishankar, S. Vivek, Rajesh Pazhianur, Darren Flinn, Jialin Wang,
Jinhong Zhang, Nini Ma, Juoli Li, and Lei Pan. Professor Jacob Rabinovich and Dr. Dave Guzonas were instru-
mental in helping the surface forces research started at Virginia Tech.
Aside from his efforts to prove the existence of the hydrophobic force in TFW and to better understand its
role in flotation, Yoon explored the possibility of developing new separation processes from the basic informa-
tion. He found that hydrophobic particles such as bituminous coal self-coagulate in the absence of chemical
additives when the slurry is gently agitated. The kinetic energies required to induce the coagulation was less
than predicted by the DLVO theory by orders of magnitude, indicating that the coagulation is caused by the
hydrophobic force. The process, which is referred to as hydrophobic coagulation, can be applied for separat-
ing ultrafine coal from clay as disclosed in a U.S. patent (No. 5,161,694). The key people who initiated this
research included Zhenghe Xu and Rick Honaker, who have become outstanding university faculty members.
Yoon’s group has also developed methods of enhancing the hydrophobicity of collector-coated mineral
particles by using various hydrophobicity-enhancing reagents and thereby increasing the rate of flotation and
dewatering fine particles. In addition, Yoon developed a reagent package that can be used to increase the hydro-
phobicity of small diamonds that are in the range of millimeters, which is well beyond the range of particles
floated in the minerals and coal industries. These technologies have been patented and licensed to Nalco for
commercial use. Further, Yoon has developed a novel separation and drying process using recyclable hydro-
phobic liquids, which is also based on hydrophobic interaction. The graduate students who contributed to the
technology development included Ramazan Asmatulu, Jingmin Zhang, Dongchul Shin, and Kerem Eraydin.
In the coal industry, fine coal is cleaned by flotation, with clean coal products being dewatered using
mechanical and/or thermal drying methods. The latter is costly, while the former is inefficient. As a result,
many companies are forced to discard a significant portion of the fine coal to numerous impoundments or to the
environment. A consequence of this problem was the black water witnessed by Yoon when he was on his way
to his first summer job in Korea. His group has recently developed a hyperbaric centrifuge technology, which
has been licensed to Decanter Machine, Inc. The first commercial units installed at Jim Walters Resources,
Brookwood, Alabama, demonstrated that the new technology can help coal companies recover high-value
products from waste coal while at the same time improving the environment. The students who contributed to
this technology development were Ramazan Asmatulu and Serhat Kelles.
At Virginia Tech, Yoon is a University Distinguished Professor and Nicholas T. Camicia Professor. He
established the Center for Advanced Separation Technologies in 2001 to help the minerals and coal industries
through technology development and by producing highly trained personnel. During the course of his 33 years
of service at the university, Yoon has advised 32 doctoral students and 34 master-of-science-degree students
to successful completion, and has worked closely with 18 post-doctoral fellows and many visiting scholars.
Twelve of his former graduate students are teaching in major research universities. To date, he has more than
300 technical papers, 13 book chapters, one edited book, and 50 patents to his credit.

© 2012 by the Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration. All rights reserved. Electronic edition published 2012.