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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Riverside, California » Agricultural Water Efficiency and Salinity Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #373529
Research Project: Identifying, Quantifying and Tracking Microbial Contaminants, Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance Genes in Order to Protect Food and Water Supplies

Location: Agricultural Water Efficiency and Salinity Research Unit

Title: Particle-bubble interaction energies for particles with physical and chemical heterogeneities

Author
item GOMEZ-FLORES, ALLAN - Jeonbuk National University
item Bradford, Scott
item HWANG, GUKHWA - Jeonbuk National University
item HEYES, GRAEME - Commonwealth Scientific And Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
item KIM, HYUNJUNG - Jeonbuk National University

Submitted to: Minerals Engineering
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/17/2020
Publication Date: 5/30/2020
Citation: Gomez-Flores, A., Bradford, S.A., Hwang, G., Heyes, G.W., Kim, H. 2020. Particle-bubble interaction energies for particles with physical and chemical heterogeneities. Minerals Engineering. 155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2020.106472.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2020.106472

Interpretive Summary: The interaction of a particle with air bubbles is important for many environmental (e.g, microbe in soils) and industrial (e.g., recovery of mined minerals by flotation) processes. This study examines the influence of variations in particle surface roughness and chemical properties on interactions with air bubbles. Results indicate particle factors that will promote bubble interactions include positive charges, water repellency, and small amounts of roughness. This information will be of interest to scientists and engineers concerned with enhancing or diminishing the interaction of particles with air-water surfaces.

Technical Abstract: The interaction between a particle and bubble in a liquid medium is important in processes such as mineral flotation or paper deinking. The sum of van der Waals, electrostatic, and hydrophobic interaction energies can be calculated to predict if the net interaction is favorable or unfavorable for the particle to attach to the bubble. However, conventional interaction energy calculations only relate to smooth and chemically homogeneous surfaces. Particles used in flotation have natural and induced heterogeneities such as surface roughness (SR), surface charge heterogeneity (CH), and surface contact angle heterogeneity (CAH). We therefore numerically investigated the bubble-particle interaction energy for seven hypothetical combinations of SR, CH and CAH on the particle. It was found that the strength in which the heterogeneities influence the interaction energy barrier is in the order of CAH