Abstract
This paper discusses the first phase of a U.S. Bureau of Mines study to use electrochemical techniques to control sulfide flotation with the aim of developing new methods to recover minerals from progressively lower grade, more complex ores. It has been established that (1) under slow potentiodynamic sweeps or potentiostatic conditions, the current-voltage characteristics of chalcocite bed electrodes are essentially the same as those of single electrodes; (2) reactions in the chalcocite-0.5M borate system can be studied quantitatively using a combination of spectrophotometric and electrochemical techniques; and (3) the reactions can be correlated with the collectorless flotation response. A microflotation-electrochemical cell, utilizing a packed bed of conducting sulfide mineral particles as the working electrode, was used to obtain correlations between the electrochemical reactions occurring on the bed and flotation response. Continuous analysis of the electrolyte by fast-scan ultraviolet spectrometry was used to monitor solution chemistry.
