Chitosan was used in the flotation of pyrite-galena mixtures. The results indicated that chitosan preferentially adsorbed on pyrite and galena was floated from the pyrite-galena mixtures. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses were performed to study the interaction mechanism of chitosan on the pyrite and galena minerals at pH 4 and 6. ToF-SIMS showed that chitosan adsorbed heavily on pyrite but barely on galena when a mixture of pyrite and galena was treated by chitosan. The high resolution XPS spectra indicated that both the amine and the hydroxyl groups from chitosan reacted with pyrite surface, whereas no significant binding energy shifts were observed on galena. Combined with the authors' previous studies of chitosan in other sulfide flotation systems, it was observed that chitosan could depress pyrite, galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite to different extent when the minerals were floated alone. However, in the flotation of mineral mixtures, chitosan selectively adsorbed on one mineral which depressed its flotation, allowing the other mineral to be floated from the mixture. The competitive adsorption was attributed to the differences in the electron affinity value of the lattice metal ions. Chitosan strongly binds with metal ions with a high electron affinity. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.