abstract
Flotation is controlled by the bubble–particle attachment mechanism which depends on the particle surface properties i.e., the particle composition, the surface liberation of valuable minerals and collector
adsorption. This paper focuses on using the bubble–particle attachment method to understand the factors
affecting attachment time. The attachment time measurements were performed with sized concentrates
obtained by flotation of a copper sulphide ore (Northparkes Mine, Australia) in a mechanically
agitated batch flotation cell. Quantitative mineral liberation analysis was used to determine the mineralogy
of flotation concentrates. The results showed that the higher the amount of highly and moderately
liberated copper minerals in flotation concentrates, the lower the attachment time. By using attachment
time and collector dosage, we defined a non-linear empirical correlation to estimate Cu grade. The proposed
empirical correlation has shown a satisfactory agreement between the calculated and the experimental
Cu grade. These results showed that attachment time measurements are related to the Cu grade.
This relationship may be used in the future to develop a practical method (without assays) to monitor
changing grade for a specified system (flotation plant). It also may be possible to infer potential grade
if mineralogy samples are available, but not enough samples are available for conventional flotation tests.
However this requires a significant amount of further work.