Besides clay minerals, salinewater that has beenwidely used in mineral
flotation plants as a result of the scarcity of fresh water may cause
the high entrainment of fine gangue minerals in flotation. It is well documented
that many salts inhibit bubble coalescence [10,11]. Therefore,
saline water may generate more stable froth leading to higher gangue
entrainment than fresh water. Wang and Peng [5] decoupled the entrainment
and entrapment of gangue minerals in coal flotation and
found that saline water increased the entrainment across all the size
range and the increase in entrainment was more evident for gangue
mineral particles smaller than 38 μm compared to deionised water