Frother composition and a froth flotation process for the recovery of coal values from a raw coal

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A frother composition and a process for recovering coal from raw coal by subjecting the raw coal in the, form of an aqueous pulp, to a flotation process wherein, the frother composition comprises the reaction product of 1) a polyhydroxy alkane having from 1 to 20 carbon atoms or a polyhydroxy cycloalkane having from 3 to 20 carbon atoms and 2) propylene oxide, or a mixture of propylene oxide and ethylene oxide, with the proviso that at least 50 mole percent of the mixture is propylene oxide and, the reaction product has a molecular weight of from 150 to 1400. The process is particularly effective in the selective recovery of fine particle size coal of a size of less than about 90 mirometer.