Towards a fundamental understanding of flotation deinking

摘要

A small scale flotation deinking cell has been designed based on a modified version of the Hallimond tube used in minerals flotation research. Single bubbles are introduced via a capillary tube enabling accurate bubble count and size to be measured. The cell is designed with special features to minimise the effects of particle entrainment and settling during flotation experiments. The results indicate that the flotation efficiency increases when the ink particle size is reduced, although the probability of ink-bubble collision is theoretically increased with the ink particle size. This finding suggests that the probability of ink detachment from the air bubble, which appears to be a dominant factor in flotation deinking, increases when the ink particle size decreases.