Mining & Extraction

Recover what the circuit leaves behind.

Fine particles are slipping through your flotation circuit — and taking your margins with them. In published flotation research, ultrafine bubbles recover fines that standard bubbles miss and cut collector and frother demand by up to 50%. We build the hardware that puts them in your circuit.

Up to -50%
Collector & Frother Demand
(Ore- and Circuit-Specific · Published Research)
+16–21%
Fine Particle Recovery
(Lab Scale, Narrow Fine Chalcopyrite Cuts — Not a Plant Feed · Published Research)
25–50%
Faster Flotation Completion
(Phosphate Trials, k 1.01 → 1.89 min⁻¹ · Published Research)
The Problem

Valuable minerals are leaving in your tailings

Fine and ultrafine particles are invisible to standard flotation bubbles. They slip through your circuit and end up in tailings — taking your revenue with them. Every ton of unrecovered mineral is revenue that does not come back.

The Solution

Bubbles small enough to find the fines

Ultrafine bubbles attach directly to fine mineral surfaces, creating aggregates that standard bubbles can lift. In published flotation research that raises recovery on fine size cuts, lowers collector and frother demand, and speeds kinetics. Kairospace has no mining installations of its own — we build the hardware that puts those bubbles in your circuit, and the first step is a test on your ore.

Key benefits

Get more from every ton

Capture ultrafine valuable minerals that were previously going straight to tailings. Published trials report recovery up 16–21% — measured at laboratory scale on narrow fine and ultrafine chalcopyrite size cuts, not on a full plant feed.

Cut reagent demand by up to half

Ultrafine bubbles act as a secondary collector. In published flotation research that reduced collector and frother demand by up to 50% while grade held or improved. It is a reduction, not a replacement for the reagent program, and it is ore- and circuit-specific — not a dosage another operation can adopt.

Faster throughput, lower energy

In published phosphate flotation work the rate constant nearly doubled (1.01 to 1.89 min⁻¹), completing 25–50% faster — shorter residence times, smaller tanks, and more capacity from the circuit you already have.

Heap leaching

Oxygen is a reactant in the leach, and most barren solutions run short of it

Gold dissolves by the Elsner equation — 4 Au + 8 CN⁻ + O₂ + 2 H₂O — so oxygen is consumed alongside cyanide, and in published research the leach runs best near a cyanide-to-oxygen ratio of about 6:1 by mass. Most barren solutions carry far less dissolved oxygen than that ratio asks for, which is why the same ore leaches slower and less completely on the pad than it did in the bottle roll.

The response to dissolved oxygen is saturating, not proportional: past the point where oxygen stops limiting, more of it buys nothing. Our calculator is built on that curve. It caps any recovery gain at the kinetically limited share of your current loss, and if your circuit already sits at the cyanide-to-oxygen optimum it returns zero and says oxygen is not your limit. The flotation results above are a separate unit operation and are not modelled by it.

Get in Touch

How much revenue is hiding in your tailings?

Tell us your ore type, particle size distribution, and current recovery rates. We'll come back within 48 hours with what the published work implies for a circuit like yours, and what a test on your ore would need to settle.

Get a scoped proposal

Run the heap-leach numbers

Research & hardware

What the research says, and what we build

Each problem below is paired with the published work on it and with the hardware that puts the mechanism in your line. Figures are other people's trials unless marked KST field data.

Figures below are from independent, peer-reviewed studies unless marked KST field data.

Problem: Ultrafine minerals are slipping through your circuit
The Problem: Fine and ultrafine particles (<20 μm) don't collide with standard bubbles efficiently — they pass right through your flotation cell and end up in tailings as lost revenue. Ahmadi et al., 2014
What We Do: In published work, ultrafine bubbles bridge hydrophobic surfaces, creating aggregates from fine particles that standard bubbles can lift. In chalcopyrite trials, recovery increased 16–21% for the finest fractions.
Problem: Your chemical bill is eating your margins
The Problem: Conventional flotation requires excessive dosages of collectors and frothers to achieve acceptable recoveries — driving up operating costs and your environmental footprint. Peng & Yu, 2015
What We Do: Ultrafine bubbles act as a secondary collector, naturally increasing surface hydrophobicity. In published coal and phosphate work, reagent use dropped by up to 50% while maintaining or improving grade.
Problem: Clay is coating your valuable minerals
The Problem: Clay minerals coat the surfaces of your valuable minerals, blocking collectors from attaching and preventing bubble pickup. The result: poor recovery and wasted reagent.
What We Do: Hydrodynamic cavitation generates shockwaves that physically blast clay coatings off mineral surfaces. Published coal flotation work reports that cleaning effect raising combustible recovery. The published record is ore-specific, not uniform: on a high-clay copper ore, nanobubbles intensified slime coatings and reduced recovery — clay chemistry decides, so we test your ore first. Ramírez-Madrid et al., 2025
Problem: Coarse particles keep falling off your bubbles
The Problem: Large particles (>150 μm) detach from bubbles due to their weight and cell turbulence — limiting your recovery in the rougher stage. Rosa & Rubio, 2018
What We Do: Ultrafine bubbles create a stable coating on coarse particle surfaces, strengthening attachment and preventing detachment. In published work on coarse quartz, recovery rose measurably. Nazari et al., 2022
Problem: Flotation is too slow for your throughput targets
The Problem: Slow bubble-particle attachment rates mean longer residence times, oversized tank volumes, and higher energy costs — all of which limit your throughput. Chipakwe et al., 2022
What We Do: In published work, ultrafine bubbles accelerate attachment kinetics. In phosphate flotation, the rate constant nearly doubled (1.01 to 1.89 min⁻¹), enabling 25–50% faster completion times. Tao, 2022
Problem: Toxic tailings are a growing liability
The Problem: Mining effluents contain residual reagents and heavy metals that are difficult to remove with standard settling ponds — creating regulatory risk and long-term environmental liability. Rodríguez & García-Calvo, 2008
What We Do: In published work, air and ozone ultrafine bubbles enable advanced flotation and oxidative treatment, removing heavy metals and residual bitumen from mature fine tailings.
Problem: Wet concentrates are costing you in transport
The Problem: Fine particle suspensions filter slowly, leaving high moisture in your final concentrate — increasing transport costs and lowering product value. Xiong & Peng, 2015
What We Do: In published work, ultrafine bubbles improve the filter cake structure through aggregation, significantly reducing filtration time and producing drier concentrates. Li & Bu, 2024