Fundamental role of surface roughness in bubble-particle interaction in flotation: A review表面粗糙度对浮选气泡-颗粒相互作用的影响机理研究进展

Understanding the role of surface roughness in flotation is crucial to obtain the highest technical and economical efficiencies of flotation operations. In this review, the fundamentals of the static wetting and the dynamic attachment/detachment of bubbles on rough surfaces are discussed with special focus on the comparisons with the mechanisms in the case of ideal surfaces. The gaps between current research in dynamics of bubble-particle interaction in ideal cases and the real mineral particles in flotation are identified. In addition, the impacts of surface roughness on real mineral flotation are clearly discussed by combining collector, nanobubbles and wetting state. The fundamental mechanisms in ideal case may not be applicable, or only partially applicable to the real mineral flotation operations. The future research directions on enhancing the role of surface roughness in flotation separation recovery of real mineral particles were proposed, such as developing suitable techniques to quantify surface roughness of real mineral solids, and correlating the dynamics of bubble-particle interactions in ideal case with the real mineral particles.