To further examine the effect of clay minerals on the pulp rheology
of the clean ore suspension, apparent viscosity at a shear rate
of 100 s1 and Bingham yield stress were analysed. While the yield
stress implies the existence of network structures, the apparent
viscosity is related to the strength of the links between particles.
In this study, apparent viscosity at 100 s1 was chosen as this could
be the average shear rate value in a flotation cell (Ralston et al.,
2007). Fig. 5 shows the apparent viscosity values as a function of
the clay mineral concentration. The calculated Bingham yield
stress as a function of the clay mineral concentration is shown in
Fig. 6. As can be seen, the apparent viscosity and yield stress give
very similar trends and both are highly dependent on clay mineral
concentration in the flotation feed. As the clay mineral concentration
increases, so do the apparent viscosity and yield stress.