The mechanism study on deep eutectic solvent for desilication of magnetite by reverse flotation

Magnetite reverse flotation using a new deep eutectic solvent synthesized by lactic acid and CTAC as the collector has been investigated in this work. The flotation test results were compared with dodecylamine. The CTAC/lactic acid DES increased the grade of total iron to 66.69%, and the reduce quartz content to 6.67%, which were preferable to dodecylamine (the grade of Fe in the concentrate is 63.47%, and the grade of quartz in the concentrate is 9.13%). The depression performance and adsorption mechanism of CTAC/lactic acid DES on surface of magnetite and quartz are investigated by FT-IR, zeta potential and XPS. The results show that the adsorption of CTAC/lactic acid DES on quartz surface is more effective than that of magnetite. Therefore, deep eutectic solvent is an effective reagent for reverse flotation of magnetite as collector.