Difference between Traditional and Nanobubble Flotation of Fine Flake Graphite

China's large flake graphite resources are rich in reserves, but the use of fine flake graphite will become the main utilization resource in the future with the continuous exploitation of large flake graphite resources. Objective Conventional flotation is difficult to recover effectively due to the particle size of fine flake graphite. MethodThe fine flake graphite from Luobei Area of Heilongjiang Province is taken as the research object, the difference between nanobubble flotation and conventional flotation on the recovery of micro-fine flake graphite from Luobei Area of Heilongjiang Province was studied in this paper by contrasting flotation column experiments. ResultThe recovery of nanobubbles on micro-fine flake graphite is about 2～3 percentage higher than that of conventional flotation, and the grade of nanobubbles flotation concentrate is always slightly higher than that of traditional flotation concentrate. In addition, the reasonable flotation index can be obtained by reducing the flotation aeration by 0.2 L/min, and the dosage of collector and frother can be saved by about 200 g/t. The flotation index obtained at the feed rate of 1.2 L/min is the same as that obtained at the conventional flotation feed rate of 0.8 L/min, the feed rate is increased by 0.4 L/min. Conclusion The main reason for enhancing the flotation of micro-fine flake graphite is that nanobubbles can improve the surface hydrophobicity of micro-fine flake graphite and reduce the surface potential of graphite, promote the formation of stable hydrophobic aggregates with a large apparent size of micro-fine flake graphite, and then improve the flotation recovery effect of micro-fine flake graphite.