Flotation, which is a major physicochemical technology for separating and enriching desired components according to their differences in surface wettability and floatability, is a cost-effective process with low water and reagent consumption, convenient industrial adaptation and high metal recovery.
Because of this advantage, flotation technology can be actively applied to valuable mineral separation from raw ore as well as metal recovery from secondary resources, such as mine tailings, waste slag, dust, and scrap metal. Over the past few decades, there has been considerable interest in research efforts to recover heavy metals from secondary resources, resulting in the development of various separation and enrichment techniques to recover metals from waste.
In particular, various secondary resource recycling reviews have also been reported over the last ten years. However, the reagent regimes and the separation mechanisms have not been investigated comprehensively when flotation technology is applied to recover metals from secondary resources.
Ri Kyong Hun, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, has put forward some views on the actual situation of metal recovery/removal from several solid wastes and wastewater by flotation technology.
His study was focused on the reagent regimes and physicochemical & electrochemical mechanism of flotation.
For more information, please refer to his paper “Application of flotation to recovery/removal of heavy metals in secondary resources: A comprehensive review” in “Minerals Engineering” (SCI).
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