The effects of aeration rate, particle size and pulp density on the flotation rate distributions

Abstract

The apparent flotation rate distributions have been estimated from the flotation kinetic data by the numerical inversion of the Laplace transform. The distributions have been analyzed for their dependence on aeration rate, particle size and initial pulp density. The distribution function remains unaltered, but the argument of the function, the apparent flotation rate, is rescaled with change in the rate of aeration and particle size. The scaling factor increases rapidly with the rate of aeration and exhibits a characteristic maximum for intermediate particle size. The calculated distributions are approximately independent of the initial pulp density when dilute, but show marked divergence for concentrated pulps. Some implications of these results for modelling of flotation circuits are briefly discussed.