Flotation of kaolinite and diaspore with hexadecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride

Abstract

Tertiary amine was synthesized from fatty amine and formaldehyde. And then the synthesized tertiary amine was used to react with benzyl chloride to synthesize hexadecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (1627) at ambient pressure. Using the synthesized 1627 as collector, the flotation properties of diaspore and kaolinite were investigated by single mineral and mixed mineral test. The flotation mechanism of diaspore, kaolinite and 1627 was discussed based on FTIR spectra. The results show that the mass ratio of aluminum to silicate achieves 15.02 and the recovery of alumina in concentrate is 43.07% using 1627 as a collector. The 1627 is found to be a more effective and a promising collector for reverse flotation to remove aluminum-silicate minerals from bauxite.

Keywords

kaolinite / diaspore / hexadecyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride / dodecyl amine / reverse floatation / infra-red spectrum