Abstract:Flotation behaviors of rutile in different systems of several sodium salts of octadecenoic(octadecanoic) acids have been studied respectively. Several measurements including Zeta potential, surface intension, contact angle and UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra were employed to investigated the interaction mechanisms of reagents as well as reagents onto mineral surface. The results indicate that the rutile recovery of sodium oleate(SO)/ sodium stearate(ST) system is lowest and the adding order of reagent has the maximum impact on rutile flotation performance in sodium oleate/sodium linolenate(SL) system than those in other systems. The rutile recovery varies with the system even though under the same reagent adding sequence. It is the formation of the association compounds and their configurations that impact the flotation nature in different systems and there is a nonlinear sandwich-shaped complex formed on rutile surface in SO/SN system. The adsorption modes of reagents on rutile surface can be divided into two types, namely single-layer adsorption of ionic state in which the two reagents can promotes each other’s adsorption and multi-layer adsorption mode of association complex. The flotation indexes of rutile at different reagent adding sequences agree well with the changes of bandgap in each system but the changing rules of bandgap between different systems need further research.