Effect of ultrasonic irradiation on particle size, reagents consumption, and feed ash content in coal flotation

Abstract

AbstractUltrasonic waves have a lot of use in the particle surface cleaning. As flotation is one of the methods associated with surface properties, this paper investigates the effect of these waves on performance, particle size, reagents, and feed ash content in coal flotation. To accomplish this goal, coal samples in three size fractions, including coarse (− 800 to + 400 µm), medium (− 400 to + 100 µm) and fine (− 100 µm) with various feed ash content. The flotation experiments were evaluated by process indexes such as yield, combustible recovery, and selectivity index. The results indicated the increasing of yield. The increasing was significant in medium size. Furthermore, the results showed that in presence of ultrasonic waves, the collector and frother consumption decreased. And also, applying ultrasonic waves would result more combustible recovery and selectivity index. The ash selectivity index had the highest impact for high feed ash content.