A comparison of removal of unburned carbon from coal fly ash using a traditional flotation cell and a new flotation column
More details
Hide details
1
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology
2
National Engineering Research Center for Coal Processing and Purification
Publication date: 2016-12-01
Physicochem. Probl. Miner. Process. 2017;53(1):628-643
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the performance of a new cyclonic-static micro-bubble flotation column for removal of unburned carbon from coal fly ash compared with a traditional flotation cell. The coal fly ash samples and flotation products were characterized by the size fraction, X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, contact angle measurements and scanning electron microscopy. Under optimal flotation conditions, the performance comparison between the flotation column and the traditional mechanical flotation cell showed that the recovery of unburned carbon in the flotation column was equal to 89.69%, and was 6.5% greater than the recovery in the traditional flotation cell. The loss-on-ignition of the tailing in the flotation column decreased to 1.99%, and was 1.1% lower than in the traditional flotation cell. The size and scanning electron microscope analyses of the products demonstrated that the flotation column was beneficial for the recovery of fine particles. The recovery advantages of the cyclonic-static micro-bubble flotation column of unburned carbon from the coal fly ash were mainly attributed to the pipe flow mineralization and cyclonic mineralization.