Abstract The inherent hydrophobicity of carbonaceous graphitic material enables its easy flotation simultaneously with valuable copper sulphides, posing significant flotation separation problems. As widely reported, environmentally benign, cheap and ubiquitous natural polymers such as native starch can be used to depress graphitic carbon. However, starch’s macromolecular structural peculiarities and poly-hydroxyl functionalities make it less selective. Nevertheless, with these features, it also means that starch has great physicochemical versatility. Continuous research is prompted to modify starch and eliminate the deficiencies which lower its depressive capacity. This paper reviews the current fundamental knowledge of functional and structural features’ influence on underlying binding and depressive mechanisms of native starch and innovative development of specific and efficient starch derivatives. This is in particular view to improving flotation performance of carbonaceous copper sulphide ores.

中文翻译：

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用于从含碳材料中选择性浮选硫化铜矿物的淀粉化学改性：批判性评论

摘要 碳质石墨材料固有的疏水性使其易于与有价值的硫化铜同时浮选，这给浮选分离带来了严重的问题。正如广泛报道的那样，环境友好、廉价且无处不在的天然聚合物如天然淀粉可用于抑制石墨碳。然而，淀粉的大分子结构特性和多羟基官能团使其选择性较低。尽管如此，有了这些特性，也意味着淀粉具有很大的理化通用性。持续的研究促使人们对淀粉进行改性并消除降低其抑制能力的缺陷。本文回顾了当前关于功能和结构特征对天然淀粉潜在结合和抑制机制的影响的基础知识，以及特定高效淀粉衍生物的创新开发。这特别是为了提高碳质硫化铜矿石的浮选性能。