The hydration structure of water molecule adsorption at different coverages of a monolayer on a pyrite (100) surface were simulated using the density functional theory (DFT) method. The results demonstrate that the Fe-O interaction weakens and the adsorption energy per water molecule decreases with increasing water coverage, except at a monolayer coverage of 12/12 (i.e., full coverage). H-S and H-O hydrogen bonds were formed on the nearest surface layer. When large amounts of water molecules adsorb onto the surface, the adsorbed water molecules can be divided into three layers: the layer nearest to the surface, the second nearest to the surface, and the layer farthest from the surface. The thickness of the former two layers is approximately 5.5 Å. The three layers have water densities of 1.12 g/cm3, 1.08 g/cm3, and 0.95 g/cm3, respectively, suggesting that there is a strong interaction between the pyrite surface and water molecules and the influence of surface structure on water adsorption reaches a distance of more than 10 Å. Dynamics simulations suggest that the water molecules close to the mineral surfaces are in an orderly arrangement while those far from the surface are disordered.
Chalcopyrite (CuFeS2) and pyrite (FeS2) are commonly associated with each other, and they both belong to semiconductor minerals. The difference in crystal and electronic structures is an important factor for their flotation separation. Using the density functional method (DFT) combined with Hubbard U correction, their crystal and electronic properties are comparatively studied. The calculated results suggest that the use of antiferromagnetic calculations and Hubbard U correction are very important to the accuracy of the chalcopyrite results. Antiferromagnetic calculations combined with a U value of 2.0 eV on chalcopyrite show a band gap of 0.53 eV, which is very consistent with the experimental results of ~0.5 eV. The density of states (DOS) and Mulliken bond population results indicate that stronger hybridization between Fe 3d and S 3p states in chalcopyrite than in pyrite leads to a stronger covalency of Fe-S bonds in chalcopyrite, causing a reduction in the spin magnetic moment (3.5 μB) from the ideal value. In addition, the greater covalency of bonds in chalcopyrite results in greater hydrophobicity of chalcopyrite than pyrite. The DOS results suggest that S has similar electronic properties in pyrite and chalcopyrite. The oxidation states of Fe and Cu ions in chalcopyrite are discussed based on the coordination field theory according to the calculation results, which confirms an oxidation state of Fe3+Cu1+S2.
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