Colemanite is one of the most important boron minerals and covers an important part of Turkey's boron mineral deposits. The friable nature of the colemanite tends to produce a large amount of fines. Flotation appears to be a promising technique to recover colemanite from such fines. During flotation process, selectivity problem arises between colemanite and associated gangue minerals such as realgar. There is a close relationship between floatability of minerals and contact angle. Therefore, surface hydrophobicity of colemanite and realgar minerals were investigated by receding contact angle measurements in the absence and presence of flotation reagents. The water contact angle values at the colemanite surface remained almost unchanged at 32-35degrees in the solutions of potassium amyl xanthate (KAX), potassium ethyl xanthate (KEX) and petroleum sulphanate (R825) while another petroleum sulphanate (R840), sodium oleate and tallow amine (Armac-T) affected hydrophobicity of colemanite, and the contact angle values increased up to 47degrees. The contact angle values of 62, 63, 45, 46, 39, and 43degrees at the realgar surface were obtained in the solutions of KAX, KEX, sodium oleate, R825, R840 and Armac-T, respectively. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.