Minerals Engineering 70 (2015) 8–13

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Minerals Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mineng

Effect of clay minerals on pulp rheology and the flotation of copper

and gold minerals
Ming Zhang, Yongjun Peng ⇑
School of Chemical Engineering, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, the effect of bentonite and kaolinite minerals with low and high crystallinity on pulp rhe-
Received 25 April 2014 ology and the flotation of copper and gold minerals was investigated. It was found that clay minerals
Accepted 24 August 2014 modified the pulp rheology depending on the type of clay minerals present. Bentonite, a 2:1 structured
Available online 16 September 2014
clay mineral increased pulp viscosity more significantly than kaolinite, a 1:1 structured clay mineral, and
poorly crystallized kaolinite increased pulp viscosity more than well crystallized kaolinite. It was also
Keywords: found that pulp rheology modified by clay minerals was strongly correlated with copper and gold flota-
Clay minerals
tion. The higher pulp viscosity corresponded to the lower copper recovery. While high pulp viscosity was
Copper and gold flotation
Rheology
related to the decreased gold flotation, slightly increased pulp viscosity by clay minerals enhanced gold
flotation.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction modification of pulp rheology is one of the most important charac-

The mineral processing industry is well aware of the difficulty
in treating high clayey ores. Currently, the ways to treat high
clayey ores include blending them at a small proportion with nor-
mal ores, processing them at low solid concentrations, the use of
viscosity modifiers and the removal of clay slimes from the flota-
tion feed (Connelly, 2011; Peng and Zhao, 2011; Quast et al.,
2008). The difficulty in treating high clayey ores may be related
to the unique properties of clay minerals. Clay minerals are natu-
rally occurring materials primarily composed of fine-grained min-
erals of colloidal sizes and expose two crystallographically
different surfaces, the flat basal surface and the edge surface
(Schoonheydt and Johnston, 2006). The anisotropic charges on
edges and basal surfaces allow clay slime particles to coat the sur-
face of a number of valuable minerals through the electrostatic
attraction and therefore reduces their surface hydrophobicity and
subsequent flotation (Arnold and Aplan, 1986; Edwards et al.,
1980; Liu et al., 2005; Xu et al., 2003). It is also observed that
due to their colloidal sizes, clay minerals can be recovered signifi-
cantly by entrainment and entrapment decreasing the product
quality (Wang and Peng, 2013).
While the focus has been on slime coating and mechanical
entrainment, the effect of clay minerals on pulp rheology and
subsequent flotation has received less attention. In fact, the
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 3365 7156; fax: +61 7 3365 3888.
E-mail address: yongjun.peng@uq.edu.au (Y. Peng).
teristics of clay minerals. Due to their anisotropic structure and
charge properties, clay platelets can form three different modes
of association, edge-to-face (EF), edge-to-edge (EE) and face-to-
face (FF) (Van Olphen, 1977). The EF and EE contacts lead to
three-dimensional voluminous ‘house-of-cards’ structures and
eventually gelation when the card house matrix fills the total avail-
able volume, accompanied by the increased viscosity. The viscosity
of a concentrated clay suspension is proportional to the number of
these EF and EE particle–particle linkages per unit volume and to
the strength of individual linkages (Rand and Melton, 1977). The
FF contact refers to the formation of aggregates of paralleled clay
platelets and leads to thicker and larger flakes. It decreases the vis-
cosity of suspensions by reducing the number of units available to
build gel structures and the surface available for particle interac-
tions (Luckham and Rossi, 1999). More recently, the high-resolu-
tion Cryo-vitrification/Cryo-SEM technique introduced by Du
et al. (2010) provided direct insight to the clay aggregate structures
in aqueous media and FF, EF and EE aggregations of kaolinite were
observed by Cryo-SEM. However, it is worth noting that there exist
different schools of thought regarding the prevalent modes of par-
ticle association and particle aspect ratio plays an important role in
determining the possible modes of association (Ndlovu et al.,
2014). For instance, EF association which is well established in
thick particles, such as kaolinite, is not apparent in thin bentonite
(Rand et al., 1980). For particles with high aspect ratio, the most
important aspect of rheological behaviour is the FF aggregation
(de Kretser et al., 1998).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2014.08.014
0892-6875/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 M. Zhang, Y. Peng / Minerals Engineering 70 (2015) 8–13
A number of studies have indicated a strong relationship
between flotation performance and pulp rheological properties.
It has been found that changes in rheology of mineral slurries
influence the hydrodynamics within flotation cells and therefore
various flotation sub-processes including gas dispersion and parti-
cle–bubble attachment as well as the mobility of particles and
mineralised bubbles in the pulp phase (Bakker et al., 2009;
Shabalala et al., 2011). Shabalala et al. (2011) also proposed that
the unexpected decrease in bubble size and gas holdup with
increasing the solid concentration was attributed to the high yield
stress of the slurry. Patra et al. (2012) identified that pulp rheology
had a strong effect on the selective separation of Ni minerals from
the fibrous minerals entangled in flotation slurry leading to the
formation of large networks with a simultaneous increase in pulp
viscosity and subsequent poor flotation of Ni minerals. On the
other hand, it has been reported that high viscosity is beneficial
to coarse particle flotation. The major difficulty in coarse particle
flotation is the high bubble–particle detachment efficiency (Pyke
et al., 2003). Xu et al. (2012) demonstrated that the recovery of
coarse particles was increased with an increased medium viscosity
controlled by adding a certain amount of glycerol as a result of
more stable bubble–particle aggregates. It has been reported that
increasing pulp viscosity in flotation results in a decrease in turbu-
lent energy dissipation, a key parameter which directly controls
the stability of a particle–bubble aggregate and quantifies the
mean shear forces acting on the bubble–particle aggregate
(Kitano et al., 1981; O’Connor et al., 1990; Pyke et al., 2003).
How clay minerals affect pulp rheology and the subsequent
mineral flotation is the core subject of this study.
Kaolinite and smectite are the most common clay minerals
which are often associated with copper, gold and other valuable
minerals. They have different structures and affect pulp rheology
differently. Kaolinite, a non-swelling clay mineral with a 1:1 alu-
mina to silica layered structure, has low chemical reactivity (Kau
et al., 1998). Whilst well crystallized Snobrite has relatively thicker
edge dimensions compared with poorly crystallized Q38, Q38 has a
more complex surface structure on the extensive (basal) surface
and also much more disordered edges than the Snobrite (Du et al.,
2010). Zbik and Smart (1998) found that the complexity of the sur-
face structure in the poorly crystallized kaolinite contributed to
more than 30% of the total area. The imperfectly stacked poorly
crystallized kaolinite was observed to have a greater surface than
the well crystallized kaolinite (Murray and Lyons, 1959). It is shown
that crystallinity can have a significant impact on the interpretation
of rheological behaviour of clay mineral suspensions (Ndlovu et al.,
2014). Teh et al. (2009) related the variation in the rheological prop-
erties of different kaolinite suspensions to the particle edge pos-
sessing different surface properties. Du et al. (2010) noted that
the poorly crystallized kaolinite yielded slower settling rates and
lower settled bed density. It is anticipated that the physical mor-
phology of the kaolinite surface plays a decisive role in controlling
pulp rheology in flotation and mineral flotation behaviour.
Montmorillonite belongs to the smectite group with a 2:1 alu-
mina to silica layered structure. It is a swelling clay which can
takes up to 10 times its weight and increases its volume by 20
times and the main component of bentonite (Norrish, 1954). Ben-
tonite slurries display a significant yield stress even at a low con-
centration due to the high swelling and flocculation of fine clay
particles producing a viscous gel-like structure (Goh et al., 2011).
Compared to kaolinite, the larger specific surface area and higher
aspect ratio of bentonite have a stronger impact on the viscosity
of its suspensions (Swartzen-Allen and Matijevic, 1974). It is
expected that bentonite may have a greater effect on mineral flota-
tion than kaolinite.
In this study Snobrite and Q38 were chosen to represent well
and poorly crystallized non-swelling kaolinite clay and bentonite
9
was chosen to represent a more complicated swelling clay. The
effect of Snobrite, Q38 and bentonite on pulp rheology in flotation
and the subsequent flotation behaviour of copper and gold miner-
als were studied.
2. Experimental
2.1. Materials and reagents
A copper–gold ore with low clay content was crushed to a size
of 2.36 mm before grinding and flotation. The mineral composi-
tions of this ore analysed by quantitative X-ray Diffraction (XRD)
are shown in Table 1. The major gangue minerals are quartz, albite,
muscovite and clinochlore with minor kaolinite. The elemental
compositions of the ore are shown in Table 2 indicating 0.70% Cu
and 0.47 g/t Au. Diagnostic leaching shows that more than 80%
Cu is associated with primary copper mineral, chalcopyrite and
the rest is associated with secondary copper minerals and oxides.
Mineralogy analysis indicates that 30–40% gold particles are liber-
ated. This ore was referred to as ‘‘clean ore’’ in this study. Q38 and
bentonite were purchased from Sibelco Group, Australia. Snobrite
was purchased from Unimin Limited, Australia. Quantitative XRD
analysis shows that the Q38 sample contains 85% kaolinite with
4% quartz and 11% muscovite. The bentonite sample contains
63% montmorillonite, 25% albite and 12% quartz. The Snobrite sam-
ple contains 91% kaolinite with 7% quartz and 2% muscovite.
Particle size distributions of these three clay mineral samples
were measured by a Laser Diffraction Malvern Mastersizer (Mal-
vern Instrument Ltd., U.K.) using a very dilute suspension (about
0.1% solids) conditioned with dispersants followed by ultrasonic
dispersion for 20 s. The particle size distribution of mill discharge
of the clean ore was measured using a combination of wet/dry
sieving from 425 lm to 38 lm. The size distributions of these clay
mineral samples and ground clean ore are shown in Fig. 1. The size
distributions of these clay mineral samples are similar with 70%
particles smaller than 10 lm, while the P80 of the ground clean
ore is 212 lm.
Sodium isopropyl xanthate (SIPX) and Cytec Aero 3894A (a thio-
nocarbamate) were used in this study as collectors. Huntsman
polyfroth W22 was used as the frother. Brisbane tap water was
used throughout the study.
2.2. Mineral grinding and flotation
1 kg crushed clean ore sample was ground in a laboratory stain-
less steel rod mill with stainless steel rods at 50% solids to obtain
80% particles passing 212 lm with the addition of 8 g/t Cytec
3894A. The mill discharge was then transferred to a 3.0 L Agitair
flotation cell.
In order to study the effect of various amounts of clay minerals
on copper and gold flotation, a series of artificial mixtures of the
clean ore and clay minerals were prepared. For each test a calcu-
lated amount of clean ore slurry (0–15% of the total solid by weight
in each case) was taken out from the agitating flotation cell and
replaced by the same amount of a well-mixed clay mineral suspen-
sion so that the concentration of clay minerals in the mixture var-
ied from 0% to 15% while the solid density for all tests was kept
constant. The mixed slurry was then conditioned with SIPX collec-
tor (6 g/t) and frother (15 g/t) before flotation. During flotation,
Table 1
Mineral compositions of the clean ore sample analysed by XRD (wt.%).
Quartz Kaolinite Albite Pyrite Muscovite Clinochlore
28 3 50 1 10 8
10 M. Zhang, Y. Peng / Minerals Engineering 70 (2015) 8–13
Table 2
Key elements of the clean ore sample.
Copper (%) Gold (g/t) Iron (%) Zinc (%)
0.70 0.47 2.87 0.33
Fig. 1. The size distributions of Snobrite, Q38, bentonite samples and ground clean
ore.
four concentrates were collected after cumulative times of 1, 3, 7
and 17 min. After the second concentrate, SIPX collector (4 g/t)
and frother (15 g/t) were added again to the pulp. Flotation was
operated at an air flow rate of 8.0 L/min. The speed of the impeller
was kept constant at 800 rpm. Lime was used to control the pH 9.5
at the end of grinding and during flotation.
2.3. Rheology measurement
Rheology measurements were conducted with an Ares rheome-
ter (TA Instruments Ltd., U.S.) which employs a computation pro-
gram so that measurement parameters such as shear stress,
viscosity, and torque are directly calculated. A couette geometry
with a stationary inner cylinder and a rotating outer cylinder
was utilized. The gap between the inner bob (Diameter = 32 mm)
and outer cup (Diameter = 34 mm) of the Couette geometry was
1 mm and very small when compared to the cup (<3%). Therefore,
the artefacts arising from non-uniform shearing in this small gap
were negligible. Meanwhile, the rheometer was operated in
strain-controlled mode where the shear rate was fixed and the
required torque (shear stress) was the value being measured. All
rheology measurements were performed at ambient temperature
around 22 °C.
Each measurement required a sample of 15 cm3 which was
transferred by a 20 cm3 syringe from the agitating flotation cell
before the flotation tests were conducted. The small tip of the syr-
inge was cut to ensure representative samples to be taken and that
the sample procedure did not affect the true rheology. Rheograms
were generated in the shearing rate ranging between 4 and 300 s1
for 100 s to obtain complete curves. The Bingham model was
selected to obtain extrapolated shear yield stress since it fitted
the flow curves the best. It should be pointed out that the variation
in the purities of Snobrite, Q38 and bentonite samples will not
affect the experimental interpretations. Q38, for example, contains
muscovite, another clay mineral which has the ability to initiate
rheological complexity. However, the Q38 addition in this study
is 5–15% and this Q38 sample contains 11% muscovite, which
makes the proportion of muscovite in the feed from 0.55% to
1.65%. As a result, the small amount of impurities would not be a
contributing factor to the change of the rheological properties
compared to clay minerals added.
3. Results and discussion
Sulphur (%) 3.1. Effect of clay minerals on pulp rheology
0.86
The effect of Snobrite, Q38 and bentonite on the pulp rheology
of the clean ore in flotation was investigated. The rheograms of the
clean ore suspensions indicating the shear stress as a function of
shear rate with and without the addition of Snobrite, Q38 and ben-
tonite are shown in Figs. 2–4, respectively. As can be seen, the
clean ore suspension without the addition of any clay mineral dis-
played a Newtonian fluid with the shear stress versus shear rate
curve being linear and passing through the origin at 30% solids in
flotation. The addition of Snobrite at up to 15% and the addition
of Q38 at low concentrations (e.g., 5% and 10%) did not change
the Newtonian nature of the clean ore suspension with the shear
stress slightly increased at the same shear rate. The addition of
Q38 at 15% and the addition of bentonite at 5%, 10% and 15%, how-
ever, caused the clean ore suspension to behave as a non-Newto-
nian fluid with yield stress. The presence of yield stress indicates
that complex structures are formed in the suspensions (Ndlovu
et al., 2011). In these cases, the suspensions have initial yield stress
at a low shear rate, and afterwards present pseudo-plastic or
shear-thinning type behaviour at higher shear rates. This can be
interpreted by the overcoming of the force holding the layers
together to initiate flow and under shear, the large aggregates of
clay minerals are separated into smaller units and as the shear rate
increases, the further breakdown of the aggregates results in shear
thinning.
15% clean ore was also ground to the same size of clay minerals
and mixed with the ground clean ore slurry (P80 = 212 lm), fol-
lowed by the rheology measurement. It was found that the rheol-
ogy of the clean ore slurry (P80 = 212 lm) had little change after
the addition of 15% fine ground clean ore. Hence, in this study it
is the clay minerals added that affects the rheology of the slurry.
The variation of rheological characteristic of clean ore suspen-
sions in the presence of kaolinite and bentonite at different
concentrations is best explained in terms of the formation of
aggregate structures. In a dilute kaolinite suspension at high pH
values (pH > 7), both the faces and edges of clay particles are neg-
atively charged and the inter-particle forces are highly repulsive.
As a result, no aggregates form and the kaolinite suspension often
exhibits Newtonian behaviour. However, increasing the kaolinite
concentration stabilizes the suspension with the formation of
small aggregates, predominantly FF associations, and pulp viscos-
ity is increased accordingly (Ravisangar et al., 2001). With further
increasing the concentration up to a critical point where the aggre-
Fig. 2. Rheograms of clean ore suspensions in the absence and presence of Snobrite
at different concentrations.
 M. Zhang, Y. Peng / Minerals Engineering 70 (2015) 8–13
Fig. 3. Rheograms of clean ore suspensions in the absence and presence of Q38 at
different concentrations.
Fig. 4. Rheograms of clean ore suspensions in the absence and presence of
bentonite at different concentrations.
gate structures are amplified, yield stress will present. While kao-
linite layers are strongly held together, montmorillonite layers are
held so loosely that water can penetrate between clay platelets
resulting in intercrystalline and osmotic swelling of bentonite
(Müller-Vonmoos and Løken, 1989). Due to the swelling property,
the interlayer distance of bentonite can increase to 3–4 nm leading
to the increased suspension viscosity (Luckham and Rossi, 1999).
Consequently, in addition to the formation of aggregate structures,
the swelling property of bentonite also contributes to its modifica-
tion of pulp rheology.
To further examine the effect of clay minerals on the pulp rhe-
ology of the clean ore suspension, apparent viscosity at a shear rate
of 100 s1 and Bingham yield stress were analysed. While the yield
stress implies the existence of network structures, the apparent
viscosity is related to the strength of the links between particles.
In this study, apparent viscosity at 100 s1 was chosen as this could
be the average shear rate value in a flotation cell (Ralston et al.,
2007). Fig. 5 shows the apparent viscosity values as a function of
the clay mineral concentration. The calculated Bingham yield
stress as a function of the clay mineral concentration is shown in
Fig. 6. As can be seen, the apparent viscosity and yield stress give
very similar trends and both are highly dependent on clay mineral
concentration in the flotation feed. As the clay mineral concentra-
tion increases, so do the apparent viscosity and yield stress. Figs. 5
and 6 also show that bentonite has a stronger effect on apparent
viscosity and yield stress than Snobrite and Q38. For instance, ben-
tonite at 15% concentration produced an apparent viscosity nearly
11
Fig. 5. Apparent viscosity as a function of clay mineral concentration at a shear rate
of 100 s1.
Fig. 6. Bingham yield stress as a function of clay mineral concentration.
4 times higher than Q38 or Snobrite at the same concentration. On
the other hand, Q38 produced higher apparent viscosity and yield
stress than Snobrite at the same concentration. Murray and Lyons
(1956) found that the poorly crystallized kaolinite was composed
of thinner plates and therefore more individual edges and corners
were available to initiate frictions resulting in higher viscosity. In
particular, the complex surface morphology of the poorly crystal-
lized kaolinite resists the transformation of loose edge-face struc-
tures to dense face–face structures under introduced shear forces
also contributing to the relatively higher apparent viscosity of
the poorly crystallized kaolinite suspension (Du et al., 2010).
Cruz et al. (2013) studied the rheology of kaolinite and benton-
ite suspensions and found a same way by which kaolinite and ben-
tonite concentrations affected the rheogram and apparent viscosity
of suspensions. Apparently, in this current study where clay miner-
als were mixed with the clean ore, the particle interactions of clay
minerals are the driving forces for changes in pulp rheology. How-
ever, it is worth mentioning that the likely interactions between
clay minerals and other minerals in the clean ore may also affect
the rheological behaviour, which is under investigation.
3.2. Effect of clay minerals on copper and gold flotation
Flotation tests on the clean ore were conducted in the absence
and presence of Q38, Snobrite and bentonite to correlate pulp rhe-
ology with the flotation behaviour of valuable minerals. In the next
two sections, the true flotation of copper and gold minerals were
presented with entrainment excluded. To determine the true flota-
12 M. Zhang, Y. Peng / Minerals Engineering 70 (2015) 8–13
tion, the degree of entrainment ENT was firstly calculated on an
unsized basis using Eq. (1) (Vianna, 2004):
Mgangue
M water con
ENT con:tail ¼ M gangue
Mwater tail
where M is the mass (g).
Since more than 80% Cu in the clean ore is associated with chal-
copyrite, it is therefore assumed that the overall mass pull exclud-
ing copper mineral in the form of chalcopyrite is the recovery of
gangue minerals by entrainment as the amount of other valuable
minerals in the remaining concentrate is very small. Once the
degree of entrainment is known, the recovery of copper or gold
particles by entrainment Rent can be calculated using Eq. (2)
(Savassi, 1998):
1R
Rent ¼ ENT con:tail Rw
1  Rw
where R is the overall recovery of mineral (%); Rw is the recovery of
water in the cell (%).
The recovery of copper or gold minerals by true flotation is the
difference between the overall recovery and the recovery by
entrainment.
3.2.1. Copper flotation
Fig. 7 shows the effect of clay minerals on copper flotation
recovery and apparent viscosity of flotation slurries at a shear rate
of 100 s1. Without the addition of any clay mineral, 83% copper
recovery was obtained from the flotation of the clean ore. The addi-
tion of Snobrite had little effect on copper flotation. For example,
the addition of 5%, 10% and 15% Snobrite produced 81%, 82%, and
83% copper recovery, respectively. The addition of Q38 slightly
decreased copper flotation. As shown in Fig. 7, the addition of 5%,
10% and 15% Q38 produced 77%, 79% and 80% copper recovery,
respectively. However, bentonite had a more deleterious effect
on copper flotation. With an increase in bentonite concentration,
copper recovery was decreased. A turning point was observed at
10% bentonite concentration beyond which copper recovery was
significantly decreased.
Fig. 7 also shows that copper flotation was closely related to
the apparent viscosity of flotation slurries. The addition of Snobrite
produced low apparent viscosity, corresponding to little change
in copper recovery from the flotation. The addition of Q38 pro-
duced slightly higher apparent viscosity values, corresponding to
a little decrease in copper recovery. The addition of bentonite pro-
duced great apparent viscosity values, corresponding to a great
decrease in copper recovery. The same turning point was observed
Fig. 7. Effect of clay minerals on copper recovery (hollow points) and apparent
viscosity (solid points) of flotation slurries: snobrite (}), Q38 (4), bentonite (h).
at 10% bentonite concentration beyond which the apparent viscos-
ity was significantly increased with significantly decreased copper
recovery. Clay minerals may affect copper flotation through the
modification of pulp rheology. As demonstrated by Bakker et al.
ð1Þ
(2009), Shabalala et al. (2011), Patra et al. (2012), the increased
pulp viscosity interfered with the hydrodynamics within flotation
cells and adversely affected mineral flotation.
3.2.2. Gold flotation
Fig. 8 shows the effect of clay minerals on gold flotation recov-
ery and apparent viscosity of flotation slurries. Without the addi-
tion of any clay mineral, 77% gold recovery was obtained from
the flotation of the clean ore. This is consistent with previous stud-
ies showing that gold recovery is often below copper recovery in
copper–gold flotation plants (Zheng et al., 2010). A comparison of
Figs. 7 and 8 reveals that gold flotation shows some similarities
ð2Þ
to copper flotation in response to the addition of bentonite. For
instance, the addition of bentonite at greater than 5% concentration
decreased gold recovery corresponding to higher apparent viscos-
ity values. As a result, bentonite also deteriorated gold flotation
through the increased pulp viscosity at a high concentration. How-
ever, the addition of bentonite at 5% and kaolinite (Snobrite and
Q38) at up to 15% which produced relatively lower apparent vis-
cosity values enhanced gold flotation. For example, gold recovery
was increased from 77% to 81% with the addition of 5% bentonite
and to 88% with the addition of 15% Snobrite or Q38.
The enhancement in gold recovery in the presence of clay min-
erals in Fig. 8 may be attributed to the decrease in cell turbulence.
Teague et al. (1999) reported that the flotation of gold associated
with sulphide minerals followed a similar trend to the recovery
of sulphide minerals and was mainly affected by chemical condi-
tions, whilst the flotation recovery of free gold was greatly affected
by physical constraints. Similar to the flotation of coarse particles,
the flotation of free gold with high specific density is often opti-
mised at slurries at high pulp density with increased viscosity to
increase the stabilisation of bubble–particle aggregates. It is known
that suspended solid particles reduce the turbulence intensity in a
fluid system (Schubert, 1999). As an example, Schubert (2008)
demonstrated the influence of different fine solids of different
volume concentrations on the local energy dissipation rate in an
agitation tank. Clear damping effects were identified: the finer
the solids, the sharper were the decreases of the local energy
dissipation rates with increasing solid volume concentrations.
In this study, the replacements of clean ore by clay minerals
increase the fineness of the solids in flotation slurries and turbu-
lence damping can therefore be expected. In addition, Schubert
(1999) pointed out that the interactions between the finest
Fig. 8. Effect of clay minerals on gold recovery (hollow points) and apparent
viscosity (solid points) of flotation slurries: snobrite (}), Q38 (4), bentonite (h).
 M. Zhang, Y. Peng / Minerals Engineering 70 (2015) 8–13
particles in the suspension, i.e. the state of aggregation or
dispersion, play an important role in the turbulence damping. Other
researchers have reported that increasing the viscosity of the pulp
results in a decrease in turbulent energy dissipation in a flotation
cell (Kitano et al., 1981; O’Connor et al., 1990). Hence, both the fine
nature and rheological properties of clay minerals are thought to
lead to turbulence damping in the flotation cell. The slightly
increased pulp viscosity by the addition of Snobrite, Q38 or
bentonite may increase the stability of bubble-free gold aggregates
as a result of damped cell turbulence. However, if the pulp viscosity
is too high as promoted by the addition of bentonite at a higher
concentration, gold recovery is decreased as copper recovery.
It should be pointed out that the reporting of very fine clay min-
erals to froth zone is likely to enhance the froth stability and there-
fore improve the mineral flotation (Wang and Peng, 2014).
However, in this study, copper recovery by true flotation was not
increased after the addition of clay minerals. As a result, the froth
stability modified by clay minerals is not a contributing factor to
the altered mineral flotation in this study.
4. Conclusions
The current study found that clay mineral particle interactions
in the flotation system dominated the pulp rheology. In particular,
bentonite affected the pulp viscosity the most with the concentra-
tion investigated ranging from 5 to 15 wt.%, while the poorly crys-
tallized kaolinite Q38 only slightly affected the pulp viscosity and
the effect of well crystallized kaolinite Snobrite on pulp viscosity
was negligible at all concentrations.
Meanwhile, the pulp rheology of the clean ore suspension mod-
ified by clay minerals was strongly correlated with copper and gold
flotation. The presence of Q38, Snobrite or bentonite had a delete-
rious effect on copper flotation, the extent of which depended on
the pulp viscosity resulted. The higher the pulp viscosity, the lower
was the copper recovery. Gold flotation followed copper flotation
in response to the high pulp viscosity. However, the slightly
increased pulp viscosity by Snobrite, Q38 or bentonite might
favour gold flotation.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of
this study from the Australian Research Council, Newmont Mining
Corporation and Newcrest Mining Limited as well as the discussion
and suggestion from Dr. Ronel Kappes at Newmont Mining Corpo-
ration and Dr. David Seaman at Newcrest Mining Limited. The first
author also thanks the scholarship provided by China Scholarship
Council (CSC) and the University of Queensland.
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