SELECTION OF RECOVERY ZONE HEIGHT IN FLOTATION COLUMN DESIGN

Flotation column design is an area of reactor engineering that has not attracted much research interest in chemical engineering. As a result , key design and scale-up parameters (e.g. column height) continue to be based on such factors as building and crane rail heights, both of w hich are not related to the particle collection process [M. Ounpuu and R. Tremblay, Investigation into the effect of column height on the 12 00 mm diameter column at Matagami, Proc. Int. Conf. on Column Flotatio n, Sudbury, Ont., Canada, June 2-6,1991, Vol. 1, pp 303-316, J. B. Rei s, Jr. and A. E. C. Peres, Industrial application of flotation columns in the concentration of a sulfide ore at Mineracao Manati Ltd. - Braz il, Proc. Int. Conf. on Column Flotation, Sudbury, Ont., Canada, June 2-6, 1991, Vol. 2, pp 525-537]. It is shown that the use of analogy wi th chemical kinetics in column design is also not correct. By using an alogy with interface mass transfer, a new approach to flotation column design was presented [M. T. Ityokumbul, A new modelling approach to f lotation column design. Miner. Eng., 5 (1992) 585-593]. This paper des cribes the application of this technique in the optimal selection of c olumn height. Literature data from a variety of applications (coal and mineral flotation in columns of different sizes) are used to validate the procedure.