Industries
Froth flotation and tailings water clarification.
Nanobubbles are gas cavities under 200 nm, generated in process water and carried into a flotation or tailings circuit. At that size buoyancy no longer dominates, so they travel with the water rather than rising out of it, and persist for days. They nucleate on hydrophobic mineral surfaces, shortening induction time when flotation air arrives. In tailings water the same negative zeta potential lifts colloidal solids: NanoMAR publishes 80 %+ suspended-matter removal and 50 %+ turbidity reduction, with nothing dosed.
Nanobubbles attach to the fine mineral particles conventional bubbles pass by — the fraction that lacks the inertia to cross the streamlines around a rising bubble — and carry them into the froth. NanoMAR publishes no flotation recovery figure; that answer belongs to your ore, and it comes out of bench work and a side stream.
In tailings management they help clarify water for reuse, reducing fresh-water demand and the volume going to the pond.
Flotation is a collision problem: a particle has to meet a bubble, drain the film between them, and hold on to the froth. Collector, frother and hydrodynamics raise those odds.
The recovery-by-size curve punishes both ends. Coarse grains attach and are torn off in the turbulent zone; fines lack the inertia to cross the streamlines around a rising bubble.
Buoyant force scales with volume, drag roughly with radius, so under 200 nanometres buoyancy loses — the same physics in every industry. The cavity goes where the water goes and nucleates on hydrophobic surfaces, so a conditioned particle reaches the cell already carrying gas.
Four, and no more — the platform, not a named mine or a named ore.
An overall recovery number hides where the metal goes. Size-fractionate the rougher tail and the loss usually sits in the finest material — the fraction the mill spent most power making.
Attachment: a cavity resting on a hydrophobic surface has drained part of the film before flotation air arrives, so induction time falls. Aggregation: gas bridging pulls hydrophobised fines into clusters that behave like coarser grains.
NanoMAR publishes no flotation recovery figure; nobody can quote one without your ore. It stays testwork: bench, then a side stream on one of our nanobubble systems, documented the way a NanoMAR pilot is run and measured.
Clay colloids are the fines that refuse to settle. Turbid recycle costs twice: it dulls selectivity, and spends reagent bought for the ore on the water.
| Coagulant and flocculant route | Nanobubble flotation | |
|---|---|---|
| What is added | Polymer, coagulant, sometimes lime | Water and a gas only |
| Colloidal clays | Captured once conditioning is tuned | Drawn in by negative zeta potential |
| Return water | Residual polymer returns to the mill | Only what the water already held |
| Published removal | Depends on the dosing programme | 80 %+ suspended matter · 50 %+ turbidity |
A thickener stays a thickener; what changes is overflow clarity, and less liquid to dewater.
Reagents recur every hour the mill runs, landing in the consumables budget, the tailings chemistry and the discharge consent. Cleaner return water wastes less collector on chemistry the recycle brought back.
The limit matters more than the promise. Nanobubbles do not make a mineral hydrophobic, so an ore that needs a collector still needs one. The generator adds nothing — water and a gas, no residues, no chemical storage on site, the same position as nanobubble aeration in practice wherever dosing is replaced.
In water, never in pulp: the generator charges water and the water carries the bubbles in, away from the abrasive path.
Charged water enters with the collector, so particles reach the cell carrying gas.
Bubbles lift the colloidal fraction flocculant struggles with; mill water starts cleaner.
Gas held for days works on stratification, odour and algal growth.
Bench testwork, then a side-stream pilot, then production equipment sized on the pilot.
| Model | Flow | Role |
|---|---|---|
| NanOxy S2 | 2–50 lpm | Portable unit for bench flotation testwork |
| NanOxy M Pro | 10–100 m³/h (nominal 35–55) | Side-stream pilot and scale-up planning |
| NanOxy S1 | 0.3–1 000 m³/h | Membrane platform to industrial flow; compressed gas required |
| NanVANN Pro | 5–500 m³/h | Tailings and effluent duty: TSS and TOC reduction |
The ceramic stage exists for abrasive, chemically aggressive water.
Against a baseline, on the sampling schedule you already keep.
Three cases where we would spend the money elsewhere.
Value locked in coarse composites is a grinding problem. No bubble size changes mineralogy.
Dissolved metal is precipitation or ion-exchange duty, not a particle problem.
Oxygen where sulphides sit can accelerate oxidation; argue gas choice from your water chemistry.
NanoMAR nanobubbles are gas cavities under 200 nm, too small for buoyancy to dominate, so they travel with the pulp and persist for days. They nucleate on hydrophobic mineral surfaces, shortening induction time, and bridge fines into clusters that float like coarser grains.
A NanoMAR nanobubble stage doses nothing: the inputs are water and a gas, so no residue reaches the pulp or the tailings. Whether collector and flocculant additions come down is ore-specific, and NanoMAR publishes no reagent-saving percentage.
Nanobubbles carry a strong negative zeta potential that attracts fine colloidal solids and lifts them from the water phase. NanoMAR publishes 80 %+ suspended-matter removal and 50 %+ turbidity reduction, with no coagulant or polymer dosed.
NanoMAR runs bench testwork on the NanOxy S2 at 2–50 lpm, pilots on the NanOxy M Pro at 10–100 m³/h, and specifies production duty on the NanOxy S1, 0.3–1 000 m³/h. Tailings water is NanVANN Pro duty.
Grind size, the size-fractionated rougher tail, reagent additions, overflow turbidity. Our Bergen engineers will tell you honestly whether a nanobubble stage suits your ore.
Tell us about your process and we'll size a nanobubble system for it.
Talk to our team