Effect of nanobubbles on flotation of El-Maghara coal

ABSTRACT

To extensively explore the advantage of using nanobubbles in the El-Maghara coal flotation process, the effect of nanobubbles on both column and mechanical flotation was investigated under different operating parameters such as diesel oil collector dosage, MIBC frother concentration, superficial feed velocity, superficial air velocity, and superficial wash water velocity in column flotation; besides the slurry flow rate through nanobubbles generator into a 25-liter mechanical flotation cell. The representative coal flotation feed acquired from the El-Maghara deposit located in Sinai, Egypt with chemical characterization using proximate analysis containing 25.27% mineral matter forming ash during coal combustion and with particle size distribution measurement using laser particle size analyzer is 57 µm d₉₀. Also, the flotation kinetic experiments were done to show the influence of nanobubbles on the flotation time required to obtain high-quality coal products with high combustible recovery. Nanobubbles enhanced the flotation performance and kinetics by up to 24% combustible recovery based on the operation parameters reducing flotation time from 4 to 2.25 min for 80% combustible recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• Nanobubbles
• flotation
• ash
• El-maghara coal

Acknowledgements

The authors are gratefully thanks to the financial support from the Science, Technology, and Innovation Funding Authority (STDF) (No. 30065).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Science, Technology and Innovation Funding Authority [30065].