Besides clay minerals, salinewater that has beenwidely used in mineral
flotation plants as a result of the scarcity of fresh water may cause
Research carried out by Cao and Liu [12] and Liu et al. [4] showed
that the entrainment of fine and ultrafine particles in flotation was reduced
by enlarging their sizes using either inorganic depressants to coagulate
fine gangue mineral particles [12], or high molecular weight
polymers to flocculate them[4]. Recently, Gong et al. [13] demonstrated
that high molecular weight PEO successfully reduced the mechanical
entrainment of quartz in the batch flotation of artificial mixtures of
chalcopyrite–quartz. When PEO was applied in the flotation of a copper–
gold ore, the entrainment of quartz was reduced as well corresponding
to improved copper and gold recovery. Gong et al. [13] used a
Photometric Dispersion Analyser (PDA) to investigate the flocculation/
dispersion behaviour of quartz, chalcopyrite and their mixtures in the
presence of PEO. PDA is a sensitive technique developed to monitor the
aggregation state of particle suspensions [14]. In their tests, Gong et al.