Aggregation of nickel laterite ore particles using polyacrylamide homo and copolymers with different charge densities

In this work, the effect of polyacrylamide mono and copolymers with different charge densities on the aggregation of nickel laterite ore particles was studied. The methodology involved settling tests, characterisation of the flocs using microscope, and evaluation of the flocs stability. The flocs resulted from the nonionic polyacrylamide were found to be bigger and more stable, than the high charged or low charged ionic copolymers. The settling of particles was also faster when nonionic polyacrylamide was used. On the contrary, the flocs resulted from the high charged density copolymer were small, with very slow settling rate. The size of the flocs obtained experimentally was in a good agreement with those calculated theoretically using Stokes' law. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.