In this study, the effect of an external magnetic field on cationic flotation of quartz from magnetite was investigated by using a magnetic micro-flotation column. For this purpose, a micro-flotation column jacketed with three coils was fabricated to create a funnel-shaped magnetic field. Both the theoretical magnetic field strengths and the magnetic forces were calculated. The results from flotation experiments with 6 x 10(-5) M dodecylamine as collector using a binary mixture of quartz and magnetite as a feed material show that the separation efficiency increased from 0% without the magnetic field to 88% in the presence of the magnetic field. The significant enhancement in separation efficiency is evident. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C1 [Miller, Jan D.; Wang, Xuming] Univ Utah, Dept Met Engn, Coll Mines & Earth Sci, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA.
[Birinci, Mustafa; Sarikaya, Musa] Inonu Univ, Fac Engn, Min Engn Dept, TR-44280 Malatya, Turkey.