Effects of surface electrical property and solution chemistry on fine wolframite flotation

•Solution chemistry was investigated by modified concentration logarithm diagrams.•Ferberite (huebnerite) is activated by Pb2+ in the pH range of 6.5 (7)–7.7.•Ferberite and huebnerite are activated by PbOH+ in the pH range of 7.7–9.4.•Wolframite recovery exceeded 86% using GYB and TAB-3 as mixed collectors.•Mixed collectors were more effective to separate wolframite from other minerals. In this paper, the effects of the surface electrical property and solution chemistry on the fine wolframite flotation were investigated by zeta potential measurement and the modified concentration logarithm diagrams. Based on that results, the flotation effects of different monominerals, including wolframite, scheelite, fluorite, calcite and quartz, were studied using different single collector, including sodium oleate, salicylaldoxime, benzohydroxamic acid and fatty-acid collector GYR. However, the wolframite recovery was low, and thus the mixed collectors were used to improve the recovery using benzohydroxamic acid as main collector and other collector as additional collector, including sodium oleate, salicylaldoxime, benzohydroxamic acid, fatty-acid collector GYR and fatty-acid collector TAB-3. The results show that the maximum recovery of wolframite exceeded 86% using GYB and TAB-3 as mixed collectors, which was up 13% compared with single GYB. These results could be explained in terms of the modified concentration logarithm diagrams in conjunction with the IEP values of different monominerals mentioned in this work. The infrared spectrogram indicated that because of different structures and properties of GYB and TAB-3, GYB could be complementary with TAB-3.