Experimental study on defoaming of flotation concentrate by means of mechanical agitation

Flotation concentrate is hard to get naturally defoamed because the foam is highly stable and viscous in nature. To tackle this problem,experimental study is made on the feasibility of defoaming through mechanical agitation with the flotation concentrate from Shenhuo mining area,Henan Province as the object of study. Result of test shows that the agitator speed,stirring time and number of blades all exert significant or noticeable effect on defoaming efficacy. Among them,the number of blades plays a most pronounced role which is followed by stirring time,with the stirring speed producing a least influence. With the increase of speed and number of blades,the rate of defoaming tends to first go up and then drop down. With the increase of stirring time,the defoaming rate is seen to first increase and then remain stable. An optimum defoaming performance can be expected at a stirring speed of 418 r/m,a stirring time of 3 minutes and a number of 4 blades. In this case,the defoaming rate is up to 84. 93 percent on average.