• A low-temperature stirring method achieves 77.75% desorption of NaOL from scheelite surfaces, enabling efficient collector recovery and reuse.
• Reusing desorbed collectors with only 30% additional NaOL maintains ~95% scheelite recovery in single-mineral flotation, demonstrating cost-effectiveness.
• For real scheelite ore, 75% of normal ZL collector dosage suffices to produce a qualified rough concentrate, highlighting industrial applicability.
• AFM and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that low temperature weakens collector adsorption, facilitating desorption and supporting the proposed green method.