Bubble-particle attachment has been studied in the most fundamental way from as early as 1934 by bringing a bubble into contact with a flat mineral surface and since then, techniques measuring this interaction have advanced. Water quality within flotation will impact the bubble particle attachment and as more operations recycle their water on site, an understanding of this process becomes vital. This study uses an Automated Contact Time Apparatus (ACTA) to assess the effect of water quality on bubble-particle attachment of selected sulfide minerals; galena and chalcopyrite, from a fundamental perspective. Classical microflotation tests are complemented with collector adsorption and mineral potential under degrading water quality to validate the ACTA and gain an understanding of the effect of water quality on bubble-particle attachment as well as subsequent flotation. This investigation showed that the results from the ACTA qualitatively showed similar trends as that of the classical microflotation technique for measuring floatability, however the quantitively these methods showed very different results. Due to the dynamic nature of the microflotation technique it may be assumed that plant recovery will resemble the results from this technique closer than that of the ACTA. Furthermore, this investigation showed an increase in zeta potential of both minerals as the concentration of inorganic electrolytes in the water increased. It can thus be speculated that the increase in bubble-particle attachment with increasing ionic strength of synthetic plant water may be attributed to electrical double layer compression and particle agglomeration.

早在1934年，就已经通过最基本的方法研究了气泡与颗粒的附着，方法是使气泡与平坦的矿物表面接触，从那时起，测量这种相互作用的技术就得到了发展。浮选过程中的水质将影响气泡颗粒的附着，并且随着更多的作业现场回收水，对这一过程的理解变得至关重要。这项研究使用自动接触时间装置（ACTA）来评估水质对所选硫化物矿物的气泡-颗粒附着的影响。从基本的角度来看方铅矿和黄铜矿。在降低水质的条件下，经典的微浮选试验与捕收剂吸附和矿物质潜力相辅相成，从而验证了ACTA，并了解了水质对气泡-颗粒附着以及随后的浮选的影响。这项研究表明，ACTA的结果在质量上显示出与传统的微浮选技术（用于测量漂浮性）相似的趋势，但是从数量上看，这些方法却显示出截然不同的结果。由于微浮选技术的动态性质，可以假设植物的回收率将比ACTA的回收率更接近于该技术的结果。此外，该研究表明，随着水中无机电解质浓度的增加，两种矿物的zeta电位均增加。