Toward a more sustainable mining future using a novel dodecanediohydroxamic acid: Adsorption mechanism and DFT calculation

Prometheus stole fire for mankind, but tungsten brought light to mankind. Wolframite is beneficiated through froth flotation and used as a raw material to produce tungsten. However, the flotation of wolframite using the surfactants as the collector at low temperature is still one of the most significant problems in industry. In this paper, a novel hydroxamic acid surfactant dodecanediohydroxamic acid (DHA) was synthesized and firstly used in wolframite ore flotation, which was compared with the conventional monomolecular collector sodium oleate (NaOL). The results of flotation test indicated that the changes of the temperature did not significantly influence DHA’s collecting power in floating wolframite. At 0 °C, wolframite concentrate with WO 3 recovery of 83.65 % and grade of 55.25 % was obtained by using 200 g/t DHA. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggested reactive sites of DHA were two –C(O)NHOH groups, and DHA showed superior electron-donating ability and chemical reactivity that may promote its flotation performance.