Ten kinds of organic depressants were used to investigate the depressing performance on marmatite and pyrite.Flotation results show that the organic compounds only with single group of hydroxyl(-OH),carboxyl(-COOH) or amino(-NH2) in molecule are ineffective in depressing marmatite,jamesonite and pyrite.The combinations of these functional groups still cannot enhance the depressing ability of organic depressant.The thioglycollic acid containing reductive functional group(-SH) has a good depressing performance for marmatite and pyrite.The presence of benzene ring in molecule can enhance the depressing performance.The functional group electronegativity,hydrophilic-hydrophobic indexes and frontier orbital of organic depressants were calculated,and the criterion for the depressing effect of organic depressants to sulphide minerals was proposed.
