Abstract: In order to investigate the possibility of using urea adduction method treating mixed fatty acids to improve its flotation performance,flotation experiments using fatty acids obtained from different urea adduction conditions as collector was conducted taking phosphate ore with 16.08% P from Jiangsu Province as research sample.The results showed that using fatty acid,which was treated by urea adduction at conditions of mixed fatty acid dosage of 50 g,ratio of solvent to urea (ratio of volume of ethyl alcohol to mass of urea) is 3 mL/g,ratio of urea to mixed fatty acid (ratio of mass of urea to mass of fatty acid )is 1.5,and for two times of urea adduction reaction as collector,sodium carbonate as the regulator,sodium silicate as inhibitors via one time flotation experiment to float phosphate ore.Phosphate concentrate with 18.13% P2O5 and recovery of 92.17% is obtained.Compared with natural mixed fatty acid,P2O5 grade is increased by 0.29 percentage points,and recovery increased by 15.92 percentage points.Collecting performance of fatty acid could increased sharply by adduction method.Materials Studio (MS) software analysis shows that the saturated fatty acid can be crystallized by urea inclusion while the unsaturated fatty acid cannot be crystallized.Therefore,the fatty acids with different saturation can be separated by urea inclusion.As the higher the unsaturation degree,the flotation performance will be better at low temperature,thus flotation performance of fatty acid can be improved by purification of unsaturation fatty acid using urea addction method.

Key words: Urea adduction method, Fatty acid, Ratio of urea to fatty acid, Phosphate ore