November summary: Cape Town and a birthday celebration

Half of this month was spent in Cape Town for Flotation '25.  It was a great week, with a record number of delegates, 400 from 32 countries. It was particularly good to see an increasing number of young people, particularly young women, now involved in flotation and we welcomed a new young person to MEI, Amanda's son, Will, who showed enormous potential for taking MEI to the next generation.

The expanding MEI team

There were many excellent presentations from young people and four student prizes were presented, from Jim Finch and me, and from Osvaldo Bascur.

Student prize winners with Jim Finch, Osvaldo Bascur and me

Following the conference we relaxed for a week at nearby Constantia (posting of 27th November), Jon returning to Luxembourg after a couple of days. We enjoyed some excellent meals in the wine estates and it was good to catch up with Janet Thomas, wife of my old friend Roger Thomas, who was my boss for a short time at Nchanga in 1969. 

Grandson Will, meanwhile, had an adventurous day with his friend Dylan from Cornwall. Breaking all the safety rules they hiked up Table Mountain and got lost en route!  They then had to make an almost vertical "very scary" and very exposed 300 metres ascent; three and a half hours without water and hoping that the clouds didn't roll down!

Dylan and another climber on the exposed rock face

A personal highlight this month was my surprise 80th birthday celebration at the conference dinner at Cape Town's Gold Restaurant (posting of 19th November). Many thanks to Amanda and Jon for arranging this, my biggest ever birthday party!

Receiving my birthday cake, for some reason shaped as a wine bottle

And many thanks to all of you who have sent me birthday wishes via LinkedIn and email, particularly those 195 of you who signed my 31 page birthday card and added very kind messages, which I found overwhelming! Here is a link to the card.

All a little premature, however, as my 80th birthday is today! A birthday shared by a very famous Englishman who was born 151 years ago today, Sir Winston Churchill. I've always been interested, since schooldays, in his incredible life, as his biography "My Early Life" was one of the set books for GCE in English Literature. Even back then I was enthralled by his account of hiding in a South African coal mine, owned by a British expatriate,  after escaping from a POW camp. Churchill hid in a coal heap and underground shaft for several days while Boer search parties combed the countryside. It must have been a very unpleasant experience in the dark, with only rats for company! 

In 1978 I spent several weeks in Witbank, in what was then the Eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga), and had the opportunity of entering the mine, the Transvaal & Delagoa Bay Colliery, known locally as the Churchill Mine. Although active coal extraction had ceased in 1953, parts of the mine complex, including the shafts, machinery, and some above-ground structures, still remained intact and were accessible.

Churchill was 90 when he died, despite smoking around 10 cigars per day and substantial amounts of whisky, brandy and champagne, so there is hope for me, as I never smoke cigars.

Cape Town's beautiful Constantia Valley

The Constantia Valley Wine District is one of South Africa’s most historic and picturesque wine-producing regions and is located just a 15 minute drive from MEI's conference venue, the Vineyard Hotel. Lying on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain and extending towards False Bay, cool ocean breezes and fertile soils create ideal conditions for viticulture and it is a wonderful place in which to just relax after an MEI Conference. The views of vineyards against Table Mountain are some of the most iconic in South African wine tourism.

Founded in 1685 by Simon van der Stel, then Governor of the Cape Colony, Constantia is the oldest wine-producing region in South Africa and the original estate is Groot Constantia.

Groot Constantia

Barbara, Amanda, Will and I spent 6 days at Silvermist Organic Wine Estate, the highest wine farm in the Valley. with  a stunning location overlooking Table Mountain National Park and the Atlantic Ocean.

Silvermist

The Constantia Valley is great place just to relax, walk some of the hiking trails and enjoy fine food, nowhere better than at the estate with the unpronounceable name, Buitenverwachting.

Silvermist

Silvermist

Steenberg

Constantia Nek

Enjoying the sea breeze at nearby Hout Bay

I would highly recommend Constantia as a great place to chill out after a Vineyard conference. There is no real need to rent a car, as Uber will get you around cheaply and safely.

Thoughts now turn to April conferences

After a hectic but very enjoyable week at Flotation '25 we are now relaxing in Constantia, a short distance from the Vineyard Hotel at Claremont.

Relaxing at the Silvermist Wine Estate

On Friday we had an excellent lunch at the Steenberg Wine Estate. Yesterday we were on the Atlantic coast at Camps Bay and caught up with some of the Imperial College London team.

Steenberg Wine Estate

Camps Bay

Now that Flotation '25 has ended (see reactions on LinkedIn at #Flotation25) our thoughts turn to our smaller conferences at the Vineyard in April, Physical Separation '26 and Mineral Processing Circuits '26. We will be drafting provisional programmes shortly, so it is not too late to submit abstracts.

Thursday at Flotation '25: student prizes and farewells

Flotation is becoming of great importance in the processing of ores of critical minerals and Charlotte Gibson, of Queen's University, Canada, opened the day with a keynote on lithium mineral flotation. 

Charlotte Gibson at the Maelgwyn Minerals Services booth

The morning sessions were all about the flotation of critical minerals, lithium, rare earths, titanium, vanadium and battery minerals recycling, followed by the final afternoon session on mineralogy, control, bubbles and froths.

Despite it being the final day, there was still a great buzz in the exhibition.

Dariusz Lelinski (right), of FLS, with Kevin Galvin and his two inventions,
the Reflux Flotation Cell and CoarseAIR

Although Molycop has attended other MEI Conferences, this is the first time that they have exhibited at one of the events.  Headquartered in Australia, Molycop provides flotation chemicals and instrumentation, testing and services for flotation circuits.

Making its debut at an MEI Conference, Neyrtec is a French company which offers flotation cells and conditioners.

With Christophe Hellegouarch and Alexis Ancia of Neyrtec

It was great to see three of our sponsors agreeing to sponsor future events: AECI and Promet101 for Flotation '27 and Metcelerate for Comminution '27.

With Natalie Shackleton of AECI

With Stuart Saich of Promet101

With Jan Cilliers and Jenny Wiese of Metcelerate

All too soon the conference ended and in his excellent summing up Jim Finch concluded that the future is in safe hands, considering the number of young people present. This led nicely into the awards of student prizes. Jim has been judging the best oral presentations and he and his wife Lois the best poster presentation. The prizes of copies of the 8th edition of Mineral Processing Technology, were awarded to Gillian Nikka Omaga, of Universite de Lorraine, France for best oral presentation and Ebuka Chukwuma, of McGill University, Canada, for best poster.

Ebuka and Gillian with Jim Finch and me

Also judging the presentations was Osvaldo Bascur, who offered copies of his book The Engineering Science of Mineral Processing. His prizes, for oral presentations, went to Jose Martinez, of Imperial College, UK and Guihua Zheng of China University of Mining & Technology and the University of Queensland.

Osvaldo with Jose and Guihua

In closing the conference Amanda Wills thanked the sponsors, exhibitors, presenters and delegates and invited everyone to attend Flotation '27 in two years time. And then out into the sunshine once more for the farewell drinks function and many more photo opportunities.

With MEI consultants Megan Becker and Aubrey Mainza

Barbara with MEI's longest serving conference delegate Antonio Peres

There are many more MEI photos in the Flotation '25 album. Please feel free to download any photo for your personal use. For commercial use please acknowledge the source- MEI Conferences.

Thanks to all of you for making Flotation '25 such an enjoyable and successful event.

Wednesday at Flotation '25

MEI's consultant Jim Finch, Emeritus Professor at McGill University, Canada, opened the day with a keynote lecture on frothers, which was followed by eight presentations on frothers and surfactants. 

Graeme Jameson and Jim Finch

After that, the major manufacturers of mechanical and pneumatic flotation cells, all conference sponsors,  took centre stage. Chinese company BGRIMM described their mechanical machine, currently the world's biggest mechanical machine and FLS compared developments on their large machines, the WEMCO and WEMCO II. FLS also manufactures two of Kevin Galvin's inventions, the Reflux Flotation Cell and the CoarseAIR, also highlighted today in presentations.

The BGRIMM machine on display in the exhibit booth

Kevin Galvin and Graeme Jameson are the inventors of five novel flotation cells from Australia's University of Newcastle (posting of 23rd June 2025). The NovaCell, licensed to Jord, is Graeme Jameson's latest invention, and was the subject of two presentations today.

The Concorde Flotation Cell is the second of Prof. Jameson's three flotation inventions, a paper on his established Jameson Cell being presented by Glencore Technology on Monday. The Concorde Cell is licensed to Metso, represented by a team of 17, and was the subject of two presentations. A further Metso presentation introduced their new Coarse Particle Flotation technology. This was presented by Nathalie Kupka. Only 6 years ago I had dinner with Nathalie and other PhD students at the Helmholtz Institute for Resource Technology, Germany (posting of 14th October 2019) and 2 months ago she became Business Manager for New Flotation Technologies at Metso, responsible for driving the success of the Concorde Cell and the novel Coarse Particle Flotation technology. 

Nathalie Kupka and Chantel Fourie with the Concorde Cell

Eriez manufacture three successful flotation technologies, Hydrofloat, the StackCell and the CavTube column, all highlighted in presentations today. Maelgwyn Mineral Services are long standing sponsors of MEI's flotation and comminution conferences and manufacture the  Imhoflot Cell, the subject of one of today's presentations.

A welcome break for lunch

During the afternoon coffee break I managed to catch up with three MEI Young Person's Award winners, Paulina Vallejos (2023), Ahmad Hassanzadeh (2020) and Paulina Quintanilla (2021).

Belma Sonmez Somer, of Akkim Kimya, called me over for a chat with her and her colleague Mahir Bulut.  Akkim Kimya is a well-established Turkish chemical manufacturer with a broad portfolio and global reach. 

With Belma and Mahir

And then the BASF team stopped me for a chat. BASF is a global chemical company headquartered in Germany, with a  portfolio of flotation reagents: collectors, frothers, modifiers, emphasising sustainable aspects.

I then caught up with a company new to MEI. Draslovka is a global chemical technologies company, primarily based in the Czech Republic, specialising in cyanide based chemicals and more recently in sustainable mining reagents and process technologies. In April 2023, Draslovka completed the acquisition of Blue Cube Systems. Blue Cube Systems was founded in 2001 in South Africa (Stellenbosch) to develop fast, in-line mineral analysers, and is well known to past MEI Conferences. It was good to talk to their two delegates Carika Haasbroek and Stefan Smit, both based in South Africa.

Another company new to MEI is South African company Enprotec, which is showcasing its flotation cell technology, which provides solutions to ultrafine flotation. They were very enthusiastic about the interactions and quality presentations at the meeting.

Enprotec with Gavin Mare, Annalie van Schoor and Arne Lourens

An extremely long and intensive day finished with sundowner drinks in the late evening sunshine.

The Maelgwyn Minerals team

#Flotation25