Efficiently separating magnesite from quartz using N-hexadecyltrimethylammonium chloride as a collector via reverse flotation

The flotation performances of magnesite and quartz were investigated in this work using N-hexadecyltrimethylammonium chloride (HTAC) as a collector. Micro-flotation tests were performed in a pilot study, and the results demonstrated that HTAC had high selective collection ability to quartz. Further, batch flotation results showed that HTAC could effectively remove quartz from magnesium-bearing carbonate ores. The adsorption behaviors of HTAC onto the surfaces of two minerals were analyzed through zeta-potential measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) detection, which revealed that HTAC was mainly adsorbed on quartz rather than magnesite. Thus, HTAC could be used as a high-selectivity collector to efficiently separate magnesite from quartz.