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Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium

Complex gangues and low-quality waters are a concern for the mining industries, particularly in water shortage areas, where the closure of hydric circuits and reduction in water use are essential to maintain the economic and environmental sustainability of mineral processing. This study analyzes the...

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Autores principales: Nieto, Steven, Toro, Norman, Robles, Pedro, Gálvez, Edelmira, Gallegos, Sandra, Jeldres, Ricardo I.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8839777/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35161099
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15031156
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author Nieto, Steven
Toro, Norman
Robles, Pedro
Gálvez, Edelmira
Gallegos, Sandra
Jeldres, Ricardo I.
author_facet Nieto, Steven
Toro, Norman
Robles, Pedro
Gálvez, Edelmira
Gallegos, Sandra
Jeldres, Ricardo I.
author_sort Nieto, Steven
collection PubMed
description Complex gangues and low-quality waters are a concern for the mining industries, particularly in water shortage areas, where the closure of hydric circuits and reduction in water use are essential to maintain the economic and environmental sustainability of mineral processing. This study analyzes the phenomena involved in the water recovery stage, such as sedimentation of clay-based tailings flocculated with anionic polyelectrolyte in industrial water and seawater. Flocculation–sedimentation batch tests were performed to ascertain the aggregate size distribution, the hindered settling rate, and the structure of flocs expressed through their fractal dimension and density. The aggregates’ properties were characterized by the Focused Beam Reflectance Measurement (FBRM) and Particle Vision Microscope (PVM) techniques. The impact of the type of water depends on the type of clay that constitutes the suspension. For quartz/kaolin, the highest performance was obtained in industrial water, with bigger aggregates and faster settling rates. However, the tailings composed of quartz/Na-montmorillonite reversed this trend. The type of water impacted the efficiency of primary-particle aggregation. The trials in industrial water generated a portion of non-flocculated particles, which was observed through a bimodal distribution in the unweighted chord-length distribution. This behavior was not observed in seawater, where a perceptible fraction of non-flocculated particles was not found. The additional cationic bonds that offer seawater favor finer primary-particle agglomeration for all tailings types.
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spelling pubmed-88397772022-02-13 Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium Nieto, Steven Toro, Norman Robles, Pedro Gálvez, Edelmira Gallegos, Sandra Jeldres, Ricardo I. Materials (Basel) Article Complex gangues and low-quality waters are a concern for the mining industries, particularly in water shortage areas, where the closure of hydric circuits and reduction in water use are essential to maintain the economic and environmental sustainability of mineral processing. This study analyzes the phenomena involved in the water recovery stage, such as sedimentation of clay-based tailings flocculated with anionic polyelectrolyte in industrial water and seawater. Flocculation–sedimentation batch tests were performed to ascertain the aggregate size distribution, the hindered settling rate, and the structure of flocs expressed through their fractal dimension and density. The aggregates’ properties were characterized by the Focused Beam Reflectance Measurement (FBRM) and Particle Vision Microscope (PVM) techniques. The impact of the type of water depends on the type of clay that constitutes the suspension. For quartz/kaolin, the highest performance was obtained in industrial water, with bigger aggregates and faster settling rates. However, the tailings composed of quartz/Na-montmorillonite reversed this trend. The type of water impacted the efficiency of primary-particle aggregation. The trials in industrial water generated a portion of non-flocculated particles, which was observed through a bimodal distribution in the unweighted chord-length distribution. This behavior was not observed in seawater, where a perceptible fraction of non-flocculated particles was not found. The additional cationic bonds that offer seawater favor finer primary-particle agglomeration for all tailings types. MDPI 2022-02-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8839777/ /pubmed/35161099 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15031156 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Nieto, Steven
Toro, Norman
Robles, Pedro
Gálvez, Edelmira
Gallegos, Sandra
Jeldres, Ricardo I.
Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium
title Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium
title_full Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium
title_fullStr Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium
title_full_unstemmed Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium
title_short Flocculation of Clay-Based Tailings: Differences of Kaolin and Sodium Montmorillonite in Salt Medium
title_sort flocculation of clay-based tailings: differences of kaolin and sodium montmorillonite in salt medium
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8839777/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35161099
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma15031156
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