Specialty chemical producer Clariant announced recently that one of its representatives had presented a paper at the seventh International Flotation Conference held in Cape Town, South Africa in November, describing what it termed “revolutionary” HOSTAFLOT products for copper mining.
Clariant’s Jacques Bezuidenhout, senior mineral processing engineer, presented the paper titled Clariant Collectors for Use as Alternatives to Xanthate Collectors in Traditional Sulfide Flotation Applications. In powder and pellet form, xanthates have been an industry staple for the collection of sulfide minerals for more than 90 years. However, in today’s market, they pose health risks to workers, present disposal challenges to mining companies, may require additional infrastructure for handling, and are classified as a fire and explosion hazard.
Clariant Mining Solutions developed several new technologies in their HOSTAFLOT line of collectors, which are claimed to be effective alternatives to hazardous xanthate collectors.
“This is groundbreaking new collector technology for those operations mining copper,” said John Gordon, global head of Clariant Mining Solutions. “With the HOSTAFLOT products being shipped and dosed in liquid form, they offer high flotation performance and a safer handling and disposal solution than xanthates, can lower the capital expenditures for mines to convert powdered xanthate into a liquid solution, and provide a longer shelf life than solid xanthate.”
