Adsorption of polyacrylamides on mineral oxides: Effect of solution pH and polymer molecular weight

Acrylamide-based polymers such as polyacrylamide (PAM) and their derivatives are widely used as additives to enhance solid-liquid separation in the mineral processing industry. Thus, an investigation of polyacrylamide behaviour at oxide-aqueous solution interfaces is of vital importance. In this work, the adsorption of different molecular weight polyacrylamides onto iron oxides and silica was quantified at different pH values. Mineral oxides were characterised by zeta potential, particle size distribution, scanning electron microscopy images and X-ray diffraction. The Sauter mean D[3,2] diameter of the hematite, magnetite and silica were measured to be 0.8, 1.9, and 2.0 mu m respectively. An anionic polyacrylamide (PAM A, MW 520 kg/mol) exhibited strong variation in adsorbed amount with pH, while the adsorption of two neutral polyacrylamides (PAM N, MW 40 & 5500 kg/mol) had a weak dependence on pH. All three polyacrylamides had similar adsorption capacity on the iron oxides particles, thus minimal influence of molecular weight was observed. The adsorption isotherms were fit to the Langmuir model to facilitate interpretation of the adsorption mechanism. The highest adsorption plateau density of 11.4 mg/m2 on magnetite and 7.4 mg/m2 on hematite for PAM A was found to be at lower pH. At the same pH, high molecular weight PAM N shows the highest adsorption plateau density of 7.8 mg/m2 and at unadjusted pH, low molecular weight PAM N adsorbs to 5.2 mg/m2 on magnetite. All PAM samples selectively adsorb on the iron oxide particles compared to silica particles. These quantified adsorbed amounts are concordant with the current use of high molecular weight PAM as an effective flocculant.