N-Alkylated Chitin Nanocrystals as a Collector in Malachite Flotation

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2022-08-15

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

9
10570-10578

Series

ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, Volume 10, issue 32

Abstract

The majority of reagents currently used in mineral flotation processes are fossil-based and potentially harmful to the environment. Therefore, it is necessary to find environmentally-friendly alternatives to reduce the impact of mineral processing activities. Chitin nanocrystals are a renewable resource that, due to the natural presence of amino groups on its surface, represents a promising collector for various minerals of economic relevance. This study examines the one-pot functionalization of chitin nanocrystals with aldehyde structures to obtain hydrophobized colloids suitable for mineral flotation. The chemical properties of these nano-colloids were investigated by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, their colloidal behavior and structure by electrophoretic light scattering and atomic force microscopy, and their wettability through water contact angle measurements. The functionalized N-alkylated chitin nanocrystals possessed a hydrophobic character, were able to dress mineral particles and featured a performance in the flotation of malachite similar to commercial collectors, which proves the high potential of chitin nanocrystals in this field of application.

Description

Funding Information: This work is part of the ACTA project supported by the Technological Industries of Finland Centennial Foundation: Finnish Steel and Metals Producers Fund. R.H. would like to thank the Academy of Finland for their financial support with the “BioMInt” Postdoctoral Research Project. This research benefited from the RAMI-RawMatTERS Finland Infrastructure. M.B. acknowledges the financial support from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) (J4356), and T.R. acknowledges the support from the Austrian Biorefinery Center Tulln (ABCT). The authors would like to thank Dr. Martin Rudolph and his group at the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology for the opportunity to use the atomic force microscope and Dr. Markus Bacher for performing NMR analyses. Furthermore, the authors would like to express their special thanks to Jere Vänskä and Luis Whittle Rodriguez for their contribution to the laboratory work. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.

Keywords

Chitin nanocrystals, Flotation, Functionalization, Hydrophobicity, Interfacial behavior

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Citation

Hartmann , R , Beaumont , M , Pasquier , E , Rosenau , T & Serna-Guerrero , R 2022 , ' N-Alkylated Chitin Nanocrystals as a Collector in Malachite Flotation ' , ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering , vol. 10 , no. 32 , pp. 10570-10578 . https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.2c01978