Abstract:
This research was conducted in order to study the separation of activated carbon from by-product gypsum by air flotation method. The by-product gypsum used in this research is from citric acid
process and contains 1.27 percent by weight of activated carbon. Four parameters was investigated, namely by-product gypsum concentration, VR ratio, concentration of collector (kerosene) and
concentration of frother (methyl iso-butylcarbinol). There were 4 separation conditions studied in this research i.e., the separation with no additive, the separation with only MIBC, the separation
with only kerosene and the separation with both MIBC and kerosene. It was found that both MIBC and kerosene affected the separation efficiency. The concentrations of kerosene and MIBC, which
resulted in the highest efficiency of the separation, are 0.8 cm3/dm3 and 0.15 cm3/dm3 , respectively. The maximum amount of activated carbon that can be separated by air flotation using kerosene 0.8 cm3/dm3 and MIBC 0.15 cm3/dm3 was 18.67 percent. As a result, it is shown that air flotation method can be applied to the separation of activated carbon from by-product gypsum.