Investigation of Dialkyldithiophosphate: an In-situ ATR-FTIR, UV/Vis, Raman and Surface Chemical Study

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This Master thesis has been performed within Agricola Research Centre (ARC) at the department of Chemical and Metallurgical engineering at Luleå University of Technology. Flotation is an important mining industry process where the desired mineral is separated from the gangue. The aim of this process is to make the desired mineral hydrophobic in order for it to float to the surface. This is done by adding surface-active reactants, referred to as collectors. Although the flotation process has been used since the beginning of the last century there are still some uncertainties in the fundamental understanding of the reactions taking place at the surface of the mineral. In this thesis the surface properties of two dialkyldithiophosphate collectors, namely diethyldithiophosphate and dibutyldithiophosphate are studied. The amount of adsorption of dialkyldithiophosphate onto germanium and onto zinc sulphide are studied in-situ with Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) Infrared Spectroscopy. ATR is a surface sensitive method suitable when working with water as solvent. While the expected adsorption of dialkyldithiophosphates onto germanium was not detected, adsorption was identified for dibutyldithiophosphate on zinc sulphide (the adsorption rates for this are presented in a kinetic plot). A comparison between the spectru...