Research Projects in Materials Science and Engineering

Principal Investigator: M. Fuerstenau

Development of New Reagent for Dolomite Flotation. (Co-PI with Dr. M. Misra, and T. Bell)
The United States is the largest producer of phosphate rock in the world, which corresponds to 30% of the world production. Florida accounts for 80% of the U.S. phosphate production. During the past century, the Florida phosphate industry has produced high quality phosphate with low MgO (< 0.5%). As low dolomite phosphate reserves become exhausted, the remaining deposits contain lower amounts of phosphate with significantly higher dolomite (MgO) content. It is generally difficult to obtain a phosphate concentrate from such materials containing less than the desired MgO content of 1% MgO. The objective of this research work is to evaluate the effectiveness of new synthesized collectors for the selective flotation of dolomite from phosphate rock. The experimentation will include evaluating the applicability of the new collectors through microflotation, electrokinetic adsorption studies. Experimental work on the flotation of actual dolomite phosphate ores from Florida, Utah, and Idaho will be conducted using the new collectors. [DOE]