Abstract: Sodium silicate is generally used as depressant of silicate mineral in the floatation of molybdenite.Acidified sodium silicate was used in the laboratory flotation test of Xinhua molybdenum and the test result shows that acid sodium silicate can reduce the dosage of other reagents in flotation while improving the flotation performance.In the open-circuit test of a process composed of one rougher, one scavenger and four cleaners using acidified sodium silicate, a final concentrate assaying 41.83% at a Mo recovery of 36.37% and tails grading 0.030% at a Mo recovery of 12.50% were produced, a 16.80 percentage-point increase in concentrate grade and a 1.5 percentage-point decrease in Mo loss in tails compared with the results achieved in the test with non-acidified sodium silicate.

Key words: Molybdenite, Floatation, Sodium silicate, Acidified