PROBABILITY OF COLLISION BETWEEN PARTICLES AND BUBBLES IN FLOTATION -THE THEORETICAL INERTIALESS MODEL INVOLVING A SWARM OF BUBBLES IN PULP PHASE

The collision interaction between particles and air bubbles in the flo tation pulp phase has been analyzed. The inertial effects on the parti cle-bubble collision probability are ignored (inertialess model). Spec ial attention has been paid to the influence of a swarm of bubbles on the water velocity near the bubble surface. The approximation for wate r radial velocity near the bubble surface permits derivation of an exp ression for both collision probability and collision angle as a functi on, besides others, of gas holdup. This provides useful information fo r further understanding the particle collection (collision, sliding an d adhesion) process in flotation. The model is for gas holdup in the r ange 0 less-than-or-equal-to epsilon less-than-or-equal-to 0.30, for b ubble Reynolds number up to 500 and for a ratio of particle size to bu bble size D(p)/D(b) much less than 1.