Day 2 at Comminution '16

The day got off to a fine start with a keynote from Rob McIvor of Metcom Technologies, Inc, USA.

In the exhibition I found Barbara and Donna Starkey talking to Carlo Terreni of Italian company Industrie Bitossi S.p.a., a regular comminution conference sponsor, and a world leader in the production of ceramic grinding media and liners. He talked to me about how their products can improve the efficiency of production plants by employing effective wear protection systems, reducing repairs and unexpected stops in not only grinding mills but also cyclones, feed hoppers, silos, pipes etc. He was very enthusiastic about their inert Microbit beads, currently being used successfully for ultra-fine grinding of platinum, gold, copper, zinc, nickel and molybdenum.

Chris Martin of RSG Inc, USA is also a regular exhibitor at these events, and I caught up with him in conversation with Thomas Mathebula of Idwala Industrial Holdings, South Africa and Paul Prziwara of TU Braunschweig, Germany.

Thomas, Chris and Paul

The day's sessions finished with afternoon coffee, where Aubrey Mainza and Indresan Govender of the University of Cape Town presented a short introduction to the potential use of Positron Emission Particle Tracking in developing comminution and classification models for design, optimisation and control.

And then we were all off to relax with a complete change of scene at the beautiful nearby Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens for the informal conference dinner and local (and international!) entertainment.  As you can see from the photographs below this was a great opportunity to escape from the business environment. If you were there, let us know what you thought about it. 

 

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