Synergy Effect between Sodium Oleate and Alcohol Ethoxylates on the Reverse Flotation of Quartz

In this study, an optimized method was presented for the reverse quartz flotation in iron ore purification where sodium oleate (NaOL) always selected as collector due to its accessibility and economic benefits. Three alcohol ethoxylates, octylphenol ethoxylate (OP-10), nonylphenol (NP-10) fatty ethoxylates (AEO-9) were introduced improve collecting performance of NaOL quartz. It turned out that addition helpful increase recovery with order OP-10 > NP-10 AEO-9. To characterize adsorption on activated different surfactant systems, Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) Quartz Crystal Microbalance Dissipation (QCM-D) employed. Furthermore, contact angles surface interacted systems measured investigate synergy effect hydrophobicity promoted quartz, resulting also AEO-9, which well explained results. Regular Solution Theory (RST) dilution based tension analysis utilized elucidate mechanism between ethoxylate.