Abstracto

Flotation of fine particles from binarymixture by ionic microbubbles

Rajeev Parmar, Subrata Kumar Majumder, Pallab Ghosh

This article reportsthe separation efficiency of fine particles by ionic microbubbles (IMB). IMBs were generated using a microbubble generator. Thediameter of the bubbles was in the range of 30-50 ìm. Acationic surfactant Cetyl TrimethylAmmonium Bromide (CTAB), has been used to separate zinc oxideparticle (2.2 ìm particle diameter) from a mixture of zinc oxide and silica powder (11 ìm particle diameter). Agglom-eration between particles of different charge is a potential problem. However, the initial results indicate a good separation using a novel system. The results are compared with conventional batch scale flotation.