Advance of the research on the technologies for intensification of nanobubble flotation process
XING Yaowen
YANG Haichang
GUI Xiahui
CAO Yijun
Abstract：Froth flotation process is a effective means for separation and upgrading of low-grade ore and low-rank coal.However,the process faces challenging problems in separation of micro-fine materials.Nanobubble flotation process proves to be an important approach for tackling the bottleneck.Nevertheless,numerous funda-mental and scientific issues regarding intensification of this process still remain unresolved.With an aim to pro-mote the development of the said process intensification technologies,a study is made in the paper with emphas-is centered on the following three aspects:selective nucleation kinetics of interfacial nanobubbles,mechanism of exceptionally long-time stability of interficial nanobubbles,and the micro-mechanical mechanism of nanobubble-enhanced particle-bubble capture efficiency.Meanwhile,an introduction is made to the latest achievements of the work on enhancement of nanobubble flotation process obtained by the co-workers.As revealed by study res-ults,selective nucleation of nanobubbles is a crucial factor contributing to process intensification while the sta-bility of nanobubbles serves in this case as a prerequisite for effecting the intensification process;the mechan-ism of the process intensification lies in mainly promotion of formation of flocs of particles and cutting of induc-tion time while the intrinsic mechanism of action comes into effect due to synergistic effect of long-range hydro-phobic attraction force and boundary slip of nanobubbles.Though the study,the energy mechanism of selective nucleation of nanobubbles at the solid-liquid interface is brought to light;the stability mechanism of nano-bubbles based on automatic compensation of high-density gas layers at the solid-liquid interface is proposed;and the mechanism that the action of interface in enhancing nanobubble flotation process is boosted by micronano mechanics-boundary slip combined effect is defined.The work made in the paper further enriches and devel-ops the up-to-date basic theory of flotation process and provides a certain guidance for the development of the technology for effecting enhancement of nanobubble flotation process in separation of micro-fine particles.
Keywords：enhancement of flotation processnanobubblenucleation dynamicsstabilityAFM colloidal probemolecular dynamics simulationflocs of particleslong-range hydrophobic attractioninduction time
Publication Date：2024-08-25
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：12( 1-12 )