Dresden 2014 – scientific programme

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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper

DF 9: Poster Session DF

DF 9.3: Poster

Tuesday, April 1, 2014, 18:30–20:00, P1

Studying interaction between mineral particles by atomic force spectroscopy — •Stefan Klima^1,2, Monika Mirkowska^1,2, Markus Kratzer², Helmut Flachberger¹, and Christian Teichert² — ¹Chair of Mineral Processing, Department Mineral Resources and Petroleum Engineering, Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria — ²Institute of Physics, Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria

The processes taking place when two mineral particles come into contact are most important for the industrial applied triboelectrostatic separation (TS). During TS, charge is transferred between touching particles yielding positive/negative net charges on the particles. Subsequently, the particles are separated in an electric field. However, the mechanism of charge transfer is not yet completely understood. As a model system, we investigated the charging behaviour of a single micrometer-size mineral particle touching an insulator single crystal surface. For this purpose, atomic force microscopy (AFM) was employed and force-to-distance (F-x) curves with a mineral particle attached to the free end of an AFM cantilever have been recorded. An attempt was made to evaluate changes in the F-x-curves induced by the electrostatic particle-surface interaction. As a reference, we used the interactions between the single crystal surface and the commercial, unmodified AFM cantilever. Experiments were carried out under various conditions.