POTAŞ CEVHERİNİN AMİN TİPİ TOPLAYICI İLE FLOTASYONUNDA ŞLAM UZAKLAŞTIRMASININ ETKİSİ

Potash, which is mainly used as a fertilizer in the agriculture industry, is also used in the production of glass, soap, plastic, and pharmaceuticals. The beneficiation of potash ores is carried out by flotation method and amine type collectors are widely preferred. Potash ores contain salt-type minerals with high solubility in water, especially sylvite (KCl) and halite (NaCl), as well as insoluble parts such as clay and carbonate minerals. Due to the high solubility of sylvite and halite in water, the flotation process is carried out in a saturated potash solution. These concentrations exceeding 6-7 mol/L are approximately 10 times higher than the concentration of seawater. In addition to the presence of ions in very high concentrations, the presence of slime in the medium significantly affects the mineral/reagent/air bubble interactions at the interfaces, and hence hinders the flotation. In this study, the micro-flotation experiments and bubble-particle attachment measurements were carried out using potash ore sample obtained from the Karlyuk potassium salt deposit of Turkmenistan using an amine type collector (dodecylamine hydrochloride-DAH). As a result of the experiments, it was observed that high flotation recoveries could not be achieved in the presence of slime. In order to increase the flotation recovery, slime removal was carried out by dispersion and filtration processes, and micro-flotation of the de-slimed ore was carried out. As a result, it was determined that the slime removal process substantially increased the sylvite flotation recovery from 41% to 83% at 5×10^-4 mol/L collector concentration.