Evaluation of flotation technology for the trona industry

Trona ore consists mainly of trona, sodium sesquicarbonate dihydrate Na₂CO₃·NaHCO₃·2H ₂O, including minor undesirable insoluble materials. With the present industrial practice, there is no particle separation process to remove these insoluble minerals prior to thermochemical processing. In this current research appropriate conditions for trona flotation technology were established from exploratory bench-scale experiments, and the conditions obtained from the bench-scale experiments were also applied to pilot scale flotation tests. In this regard various process variables such as amine dosage, flotation percent solids, amine to oil ratio, pH of amine solution, collector structure, brine composition, feed particle size, etc. were studied to establish the preferred conditions and operating variables for pilot-plant testing. Additional information regarding the mineralogy of the system and collector characteristics is also reported to provide further analysis and explanation.