Enhancement in kerosene droplet–coal particle collision and adsorption by bubble trailing vortex in coal slurry conditioning: Energy evolution of collision process

Abstract Understanding the collision between kerosene droplets and coal particles in the bubble trailing vortex region is crucial for enhancing slurry conditioning. We found the area of the bubble trailing vortex region increased as the bubble size increased via the Fluent 6.3.26 software. A kerosene droplet velocity range of 0.074–0.106 m/s and a coal particle velocity range of 0.062–0.104 m/s were obtained if a bubble had a diameter of 0.3 mm. We employed a high‐speed motion acquisition system and observed the collision process, which was divided into two stages: Compression and Rebound . The critical motion distance increased as the kerosene droplet size increased, and sufficient kerosene droplet motion distance and enough kinetic energy normally resulted in a rebound phenomenon. The attenuation energy was almost positively linear to the initial energy, and the energy attenuation coefficient of the collision process was fitted to 0.626. Our results can provide valuable insight into mineral separation.