particles in the suspension, i.e. the state of aggregation or
dispersion, play an important role in the turbulence damping. Other
researchers have reported that increasing the viscosity of the pulp
results in a decrease in turbulent energy dissipation in a flotation
cell (Kitano et al., 1981; O’Connor et al., 1990). Hence, both the fine
nature and rheological properties of clay minerals are thought to
lead to turbulence damping in the flotation cell. The slightly
increased pulp viscosity by the addition of Snobrite, Q38 or
bentonite may increase the stability of bubble-free gold aggregates
as a result of damped cell turbulence. However, if the pulp viscosity
is too high as promoted by the addition of bentonite at a higher
concentration, gold recovery is decreased as copper recovery.
It should be pointed out that the reporting of very fine clay minerals
to froth zone is likely to enhance the froth stability and therefore
improve the mineral flotation (Wang and Peng, 2014).
However, in this study, copper recovery by true flotation was not
increased after the addition of clay minerals. As a result, the froth
stability modified by clay minerals is not a contributing factor to
the altered mineral flotation in this study