Hydrophobicity of Minerals Determined by Atomic Force Microscopy – A Tool for Flotation Research

The mineral separation process flotation is fundamentally relying on hydrophobic interactions, which are still not entirely understood and heavily discussed in literature. We introduce the various possibilities to determine hydrophobic properties of mineral surfaces in water using the concept of colloidal probe atomic force microscopy. We base our method on the most accepted theories of the hydrophobic effect of hydrophobic surfaces in water, which consider nanoscopic gas layers to be responsible for the long range interactions. Finally, we correlate the hydrophobic parameters with microflotation experiments for magnetite and quartz surfaces.