Composition and dynamics of bacterial communities during flotation in a coal preparation plant

Numerous studies of biological reagents in the past have confirmed the great influence of bacteria on flotation. In this study, high-throughput sequencing was used to characterize the composition and dynamics of bacterial communities during flotation in a coal preparation plant. The influence of pulp bacteria on flotation efficiency of coal was further investigated. The results showed that the coal pulp harbored a diverse bacterial community and the bacteria mostly originated from raw coal. The dominantly indigenous bacteria were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria and Nitrososphaera. Spearman correlation analysis revealed a significant association between species and ash contents, implying an adverse effect on flotation. The nitrogen-containing reagents were identified as major factors altering bacterial community structure based on redundancy analysis and mantel test. This is the first study focusing on bacterial communities in coal flotation systems, which not only contributes to understanding the bacterial diversity of the coal flotation environment, but also provides biological information and methodological basis for the optimization of coal flotation systems.