Flocculation performance and mechanism of hydroxamate flocculants on synthetic hematite or goethite suspension

Suitable amounts of Al（OH）3, Na OH and synthetic hematite or goethite were taken to be digested under the simulated condition of the Bayer process and subsequently diluted with simulative Bayer red mud lotion, then the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension was obtained. The flocculation effect of self-made modified poly（acrylic acids） flocculants containing hydroxamic acid groups（abbreviated as HPAA） on the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension was studied. The experimental results show that with the increase of the dosages of added flocculants, the average settling rate of the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension in the first 1min speeds up, the supernatant solids decrease. It could also be found that there is generally a decrease in the average settling rate of the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension in the first 1 min with increasing solid content of the suspension. When the solid content of hematite or goethite of the suspension is 50 g/L with 240 g/t dosage of HPAA, HPAA has a better flocculation effect on the synthetic goethite suspension than on the synthetic hematite suspension. The adsorption mechanism of HPAA on the surface of hematite or goethite was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy（FT-IR） and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy（XPS）.All the results suggest that HPAA is adsorbed on the hematite or goethite surface by a chemisorption, and it has a stronger adsorption on the goethite surface than on the hematite surface.