The cleavage and surface properties of wet and dry ground spodumene and their flotation behavior

•Experiments of wet and dry grinding of spodumene were carried out.•Flotation recovery of wet ground spodumene is higher.•Surface roughness and the quantity of exposed faces are different.•Broken AlO bonds, densities and ionic bond strength were studied. The flotability of wet and dry ground spodumene was found different when sodium oleate was used as a collector, and the flotation recovery of wet ground spodumene was higher than that of dry ground spodumene. It is well known that the flotability of minerals is closely related with their crystal structures and surface properties, therefore morphology and structure examinations on wet and dry ground spodumene were performed by SEM and XRD. It was confirmed that wet ground spodumene had smoother surface and more exposed {110} and {100} planes, while more exposed {010} planes were found on dry ground spodumene surface. The specific surface areas of wet and dry ground spodumene in size fraction of −105+38μm were determined to be 0.252m2/g and 0.382m2/g, respectively. However, the maximum adsorption densities of sodium oleate on wet and dry ground spodumene were 21.5×10−6mol/m2 and 12.5×10−6mol/m2, respectively. The densities of surface AlO broken bonds were calculated to be 6.376×1018, 4.351×1018 and 14.057×1018/m2 for {110}, {010} and {100}, respectively. The result indicated that {100} and {110} planes were more favorable for the adsorption of oleic acid ion than {010} plane.