Recovery performance of sodium cocoate (NaCo) as a collector in froth flotation

Sri Lanka consists of high-grade quartz deposits with a purity level of 99.5%. However, a huge amount of low-grade quartz is abandoned in mine sites without any processing, causing resource underutilization and environmental damage. Froth flotation has proven its efficiency for processing low-grade quartz in previous studies. Conventional collectors with more than 90% of high recovery used in those studies show environmental hazards and low biodegradability. These collectors are usually fatty acids or fatty amines. In this study, the quartz flotation potential of Sodium Cocoate, (a naturally derived fatty acid salt), as a flotation collector was evaluated under controlled conditions: pH 11, temperature of 28-30 °C, particle size range of 90-150 microns, slurry density of 1007 kg/m³, impeller speed 280 rpm and bubble rate 0.004 m3/s. The highest average recovery obtained was 28.19±1.28% out of 100 g of the initial quartz sample, which was comparatively low, suggesting that NaCo is a weak collector.