Abstract:The aggregating behavior between bubbles and particles induced by high intensity conditioning (HIC) was studied using high speed CCD technique. Bubble size measurement was conducted, and the attachment behavior between bubbles and particles in HIC cell and flotation cell were observed. The results show that in HIC cell, high intensity conditioning creates an advantage environment for the formation of small size bubble due to hydrodynamic cavitations, and these fine bubbles have high probability of bubble-particle collision, which will enhance fine particle flotation. The bubble-particle attachment experiments indicate that in high intensity conditioning cell, a lot of fine bubbles are produced in situ on the surface of fine particles, and most of fine particles are aggregated under the bridging action of fine bubbles. The observation of bubble-particle interaction in flotation cell illustrates that aggregates created by HIC can be loaded more easily by big air bubble in flotation cell than those created by normal conditioning.

Key words: fine particle flotation; high intensity conditioning; particle aggregation; bubble size measurement