Tungsten Ore Flotation Organic Inhibitor – Succinic Acid

Among tungsten ore flotation inhibitor, sodium silicate is the most widely used one. But when encounters some complex accompanying tungsten mine deposition, sodium silicate may become useless. Although organic inhibitor can not deal with every case like sodium silicate, it has diverse structure and has good selectivity for mineral.

In tungsten ore flotation, succinic acid is mainly used to deal with barite. It originates from tungsten concentrate, the main content is barium sulfide, produced from low temperature hot liquid mineral vein, such as quartz - barite veins, fluorite - barite veins and so on. It is accompanied by galena, sphalerite, chalcopyrite, cinnabar and so on.

Succinic acid is transparent crystal, it is sour and inflammable. An important application for succinic acid is producing medicine, food and coloring agent. In recent years it is also used in metallic field and used as metal chelating agent. In tungsten ore flotation, it can effectively inhibit barite, calcite and garnet.

Chemical formula of succinic acid is C4H6O4, it is a kind of carboxylic acid. During flotation, succinic acid has two hydrophilic group, it can chelating with surface ion of barite. Research shows that, if using oleic acid as collecting agent, succinic acid can form electrostatic force on the surface of barite to perform inhibiting function. If adding more amount, the inhibiting function will be better.

Inhibiting function of organic inhibitor not only depends on chelating capability, but also water affinity of polar group. More hydrophilic group and less hydrocarbyl is better.

Structure model of organic inhibitor is Xm-R-Yn. X is mineral pro solid base, Y is hydrophilic group, R is hydrocarbyl.

In structure of succinic acid, there are two –COOH polar hydrophilic radical. But there are two extra HOOC-CH2-CH2-COOH hydrocarbyl which will lower inhibiting activity. So it has worse inhibiting effect than citric acid or oxalic acid for calcite and fluorite. However, it is cheap, raw material is easy to access. It has best inhibiting effect for barite.

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