Clariant Mining Chemicals - Chemicals for Mineral Treatment

Clariant provides an excellent range of products, backed up by technical service and expertise. This includes flotation agents, collectors, frothers, extraction agents, dispersants, depressants, filter aids, antiscale agents, anticaking agents for solid fertilizers, corrosion inhibitors for liquid fertilizers, dust control agents and explosive emulsifiers. The products are marked under HOSTAFLOT, FLOTINOR, FLOTIGAM, FLOTICOR, GENAMIN, ARKOPAL, GENAGEN, MONTANOL, FLOTANOL, FLOTOL, HOSTAREX, EMULSOGEN and TYLOSE tradenames.

Clariant offers a complete range of agents for all flotation operations and assists in solving problems in the treatment of fertilizers and provides different types of emulsifiers for explosives.

CLARIANT MINING ACTIVITIES

The mining department has helped to pioneer flotation reagents, which have featured in the company's sales range for more than 60 years (former Hoechst). Specific problems require individual solutions so Clariant's technical staff is constantly developing new reagents which are available for test work in laboratories, pilot plants and full scale operation.

Centers of competence for Clariant Mining Chemicals are Germany, Brazil, Chile and Australia. In addition, Clariant representatives can be contacted worldwide in more than 60 countries.

FROTHERS

Frothers are surface-active chemicals whose function is to provide a large air-water interface. Unlike collectors, it is difficult to associate a certain type of frother with any particular mineral system. Frothers are classified into groups depending upon their molecular type:

• Aliphatic alcohols
• Alkyl polyglycol ether formulations
• Alkyl polypropylene glycol ethers

The Clariant range (MONTANOL, FLOTANOL and FLOTOL) includes representatives of all these groups of compounds. Therefore we can offer suitable products for any flotation process, irrespective of whether ores, potassium salts, industrial minerals or coal are to be floated.

COLLECTORS

Collectors can be divided into a number of varieties based on the functional group involved and on the type of mineral collected:

Collectors for sulphidic ores:

• Aliphatic and aromatic dithiophosphates
• Mercaptobenzthiazole formulation
• Thionocarbamates

Collectors for non-sulphide and non-metallic ores:

• Fatty acid
• Sodium alkyl sulphates
• Mono/Di phosphoric acid esters
• Cationic collectors
• Primary amines
• Fatty alkyl propylene diamines
• Quaternary ammonium chloride
• Imidazolines
• Non-Ionic collectors and Emulsifiers.

EXTRACTANTS

Tertiary amines for solvent extraction after leaching are used in the solvent extraction process.

• HOSTAREX A 324 is mainly used to separate cobalt and nickel but is also suited for the extraction of many other metals
• HOSTAREX A 327 is applied extensively in the Uranium processing industry and can also be used for the extraction of W, Mo, Re, Cd, Rh and organic acids

ADDITIVES FOR THE FERTILIZER INDUSTRY

Fertilizer ( AN, CAN, NPK, KCl, Urea) tends to cake during long storage, especially during sea transport. The free flowing properties of fertilizers can be maintained by a conditioning treatment with an anticaking agent of the FLOTIGAM-type.

Water repellants, corrosion inhibitors for liquid fertilizers and granulation agents are also available for the specific treatment of fertilizers.

EMULSIFIERS FOR ANFO EXPLOSIVES

Ammonium nitrate/fuel oil emulsions explosives produced by using EMULSOGEN-type emulsifiers are pumpable and storage stable up to two years. Explosive emulsifiers of the type EMULSOGEN are particularly suited for the preparation of packaged and bulk applications. Emulsions prepared with EMULSOGEN exhibit a high stability to chemical gassing and shear stress as well as thermal stability and water resistance. Emulsions activated by gassing or by the addition of glass bubbles reach excellent results (e.g. explosion velocity, cap sensitivity) in blasting trials.