Study on Dispersion and Mixing Mechanism of Coal Slime Particles in Jet Mixing Flow Field

The jet flow field is characterized by the dispersion and mixing of multiphase flow, which is widely used in the field of coal slime flotation. In this paper, the behavior of coal slime surface modification, the behavior of material suspension and the effect of different jet fluids on coal slurry blending were studied. Based on the action mechanism of the jet flow field, a jet device suitable for coal slime graded mixing was proposed, and the mixing effect of the jet device was tested. The results show that the jet flow field has strong effects on material dissociation and dispersion, and the mixing effect of a single jet is equivalent to that of the laser particle size analyzer’s own agitation device after stirring for 2.5 min at 500 r/min speed. The SEM test of material surface morphology and the changes of Al and Si elements measured by EDS show that the jet flow field can effectively remove the fine mud wrapped on the surface of coal particles. The precondition of material suspension is to have the just-suspended capacity. The critical jet velocity of coal slime suspension is in the range of 6 m/s~9 m/s. The mixing ability of the jet stream has certain limitations. The increase or decrease of the jet height will cause the decrease of the suspension percentage of sampling points in the tank. The gas jet mode can promote the reagent acting on the surface of the bubble liquid film to form oil bubbles, which is more suitable for hydrophobic mineral flotation. The optimal speed of the gas jet is 0.86 m/s, and the shortest cycle period is 1.0 T (T is one material cycle period). The flotation perfection index of 0.5–0.25 mm and less than 0.075 mm coal slime increased by 2.67% and 26.78%, respectively, indicating that the overall idea of the jet mixing device proposed based on the experimental conclusion is feasible.