Flotation performance and mechanism of a novel collector for picromerite: Experimental and DFT study

Sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS) was developed to separate picromerite and halite as collector. The flotation tests showed that SDBS could separate picromerite from halite, the K+ recovery was 95.64 % and Na+ content was 1.42 % at SDBS dosage of 300 g/t. DFT calculations revealed that SDBS tended to adsorb on picromerite (-585.75 kJ/mol) than halite (-98.03 kJ/mol), and the selectivity of SDBS was better than SDS. Furthermore, SDBS chemically adsorbed on picromerite by the hybridization of O 2p within sulfonate and Mg 3 s of picromerite. This work further provides a reference for effectively separate picromerite and halite in industrial production.