A review of the effect of water quality on flotation

• Water quality varies due to internal and external factors.
• The effect of water quality variation on flotation can be negative or positive.
• Strategies to deal with the effect include internal and external solutions.
• Research gaps and future directions are identified through developing a framework.
• Water quality variation should be managed as a risk management exercise.

As water resources become scarcer and society’s demands to reduce freshwater extraction have increased, mine sites have been increasing water reuse and accessing multiple water sources for mineral processing to save freshwater, particularly in froth flotation. Implementation of either strategy may lead to water quality variation that may impact flotation efficiency. A large number of studies have been carried out to enhance the understanding of water quality variation in flotation. However, these studies tend to be performed on a case by case basis. There is a lack of a framework to put together these existing studies, which makes it difficult to understand the topic comprehensively and therefore difficult to identify gaps and directions for future research. This would eventually hinder the ongoing implementation of water conservation practices and thus lead to more pressure being placed on freshwater. In this paper, a review of the existing studies on water quality variation in flotation is given in three aspects: causes of water quality variation, consequences of water quality variation and solutions for problems caused by water quality variation. Based on the three aspects, a framework was developed, with which these studies were categorized and structured. Organizing literature in this way makes it possible to identify gaps in current research and future research directions.