MEC 2014- how was it for you?

Amanda's daily reports on the Minerals Engineering Conference in Poland (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) have really captured the friendly atmosphere of this event.  Now it is time for your say. If you attended the conference, let us have your views on the papers, organisation, highlights etc.

Rather belatedly, due to travelling back to UK, here is Amanda's report on the final day of MEC 2014:

Thursday 18th September
This morning started with a poster session which lasted an hour, followed by a return to parallel sessions; one on mineral processing and one on the physicochemical aspects of mineral processing. I'll hold my hands up and admit that I didn't attend either session as I was busy writing the blog, but Kwang-Suk You, of the Korean Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, won 'outstanding presentation of the session' for his paper on “Phase transformation of coal gangue with the addition of Na2CO3 during combustion” and Radoslav Plackowski, of Poznan University of Technology, won in his session with “Transport metali przez polimerowe membrany inkluzyjne wykorzystaniu 1-decylo-1,2,4-triazolu jako przenosnika”, which roughly translates (thank you Google translate) as “Transport of metals by the use of polymeric membranes inclusion of 1- decyl- 1,2,4- triazole as a conveyor belt”.

Marcin Lutynski closes the conference

There followed the closing ceremony, with the “outstanding presentation of the session” awards for today being handed out. My apologies to the winners from Tuesday's sessions, their awards were given out at the Gala Dinner when I didn't have my notebook. Marcin Lutynski invited us to attend next year's Minerals Engineering Conference, which will commence in Krakow, Poland on September 14.



Hylke Glass and C.K. Asani

We then sat down to our last lunch together, and I chatted with C.K. Asani, of Indian Rare Earths Ltd, the sole Indian delegate. He told me that he had travelled to Poland in search of help with the commercialisation of his patent, “Electrostatic separators for heavy mineral separation”. According to C.K. It could lead to the elimination of froth flotation in the processing of heavy minerals.



Then there was nothing left to do except say our goodbyes and board the minibus back to Gwilice.

Zhihai Luo, Haldun Kurama, Emre Altun, Hylke Glass, Olof Forsen

In summary, although there were some teething problems with timings at the start, these were overcome by day 2, and were more than compensated for by the friendly atmosphere which pervaded this event. I feel like I have come away from MEC 2014 with a host of new friends as well as a new understanding and warm regard for the Silesian region of Poland. Hopefully I will be back for MEC 2015!