The use of seawater, hypersaline or other low-quality water supplies in mineral processingoperations has strong benefits in places like Chile and Australia, not just economically but in ensuringsocial license to operate. Despite this commercial application, the effect of dissolved salts on tailingsflocculation is not yet fully understood. This partly stems from the operator-dependence that plaguesnormal cylinder testing and the tendency in some previous literature studies to make flocculantactivity comparisons under a narrow range of conditions (single dosage, solids concentration and/orfixed mixing).Six acrylamide/acrylate copolymers with the same anionicity (30%) but different molecular weights,were evaluated in the flocculation of standard kaolin slurries prepared in seawater or solutionscontaining selected cations at various concentrations. Settling rate-dosage response curves werecollected for these polymers, combining continuous Couette flocculation with real-time aggregatesizing and off-line determination of individual aggregate settling rate vs. size, from which theirdensities could be derived. Shifts in the dosage response curves under different conditions reflectedchanges in both the aggregate size and density.
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