Intensification of coal slime separation in fluidized bed flotation column: change of turbulence

Flotation cell and flotation column are widely used as the separation equipment for coal slime. In order to obtain better flotation results for different particle sizes, different turbulence intensity of flow field need to be created, but the turbulence intensity is not easy to adjust in conventional flotation equipment. In this paper, a new fluidized bed flotation column was designed to control turbulence intensity by the liquid velocity and static bed height. The effects of liquid velocities (0.198 m/s,0.226 m/s,0.254 m/s) and static bed heights (0.317 m,0.343 m,0.380 m) on coal slime flotation with different particle sizes were studied, which were evaluated by the combustible recovery, ash content, and the yield of clean coal. The research results showed that the flotation performance of coarse particles is better with low turbulence caused by low liquid velocity and great static bed height than that in high turbulence. Under the condition of high liquid velocity and low bed height, a high turbulence intensity environment is created, and the fine particle separation efficiency is better than that in low turbulence.