Elaboration of an Economic and Efficient Pulp Conditioning Method for a Low-Quality Coarse Coal Slime

ABSTRACT

The high energy consumption of high-intensity conditioning (HIC) limits the popularization of this technology although it has been validated as an effective way to improve flotation. In this study, an economic and efficient pulp conditioning method for a low-quality coarse coal slime was innovatively proposed by comparing four different conditioning-flotation processes. It is found that the energy consumption per unit combustible recovery of conditioning using emulsified diesel was reduced by 8.3% compared with that of the conventional conditioning. This is attributed to the energy reduction of the optimum conditioning speed decreased from 2100 rpm to 1300 rpm, and a negligible energy consumed in the preparation of emulsified diesel. Results showed that when using an emulsified diesel, flotation performance was further improved and less affected by conditioning speed but more by conditioning time. Moreover, flotation is no longer affected by the degree of surface cleaning. It was indicated that the dispersion of collector is crucial for HIC. This study provides a technical reference for the development of economic and efficient conditioning equipment.

KEYWORDS:

• Froth flotation
• coarse coal slime
• emulsified diesel
• energy reduction
• high-intensity conditioning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

CRediT author statement

Yuexian Yu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing, Supervision. Min Chen: Investigation, Data curation, Writing-Original draft preparation. Wei Shi: Investigation. Haisheng Wang: Investigation. Yongxi Zhao: Investigation. Liyong Wei: Validation. Lixin Tian: Validation. Shunzeng Tong: Validation.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support by the Basic Research Plan of Shaanxi Natural Science [No. 2024JC-YBMS-335], the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No. 51904239], the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China [No. 2020M673445], and the Qin chuang Yuan High-Level Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talents Recruitment Program [No. QCYRCXM-2023-054].