Column Flotation Popularity and Usage

Courtesy Metso

In the posting of 14 May 2010 I raised the question of whether flotation columns ever realised their potential. The responses suggested that perhaps they didn't, apart from their use as cleaners, the emphasis now, particularly in base metal operations, being more on extremely large, energy efficient, mechanical cells.

A paper published this month in Minerals Engineering examines this question in depth. Greg Harbort and Danica Clarke have reviewed the fluctuations in the popularity and usage of flotation columns.

They conclude that since 1961 column flotation has gone through three distinct rises and falls in popularity. These fluctuations have largely been driven by commodity prices. Within these primary waves there are secondary fluctuations in popularity driven by the rise and fall of individual flotation column manufacturers, the necessity for circuit refurbishment, commodity specific requirements and the effect of capacity saturation, both within commodities and individual countries.

Areas where flotation columns have achieved wide popularity include the Australian, Chinese and USA coal industry, the phosphate industry in the USA and Brazil, and the iron ore industry in Brazil. Within the base metals industry flotation columns are generally accepted in the smaller capacity cleaner roles worldwide.

This is an excellent overview, providing an analysis of over 4000 installed flotation columns, contained in the Amec Foster Wheeler flotation database. Changing trends in column flotation use by type, commodity and geographical region are reviewed. The reasons for the numerous rises and falls in column flotation use are also discussed.

To supplement this fine review, I would appreciate the views of operators who are, or who have been, involved in column flotation applications.

Twitter @barrywills

Process Mineralogy '17 not too far away

Process Mineralogy '17 is only 7 weeks away, and only a few days ago we welcomed South African company Wirsam Scientific as a first time sponsor to an MEI Conference.

Wirsam Scientific was established in 1968 by Managing director Peter Wirsam, and throughout its history has entrenched itself as one of Africa's leading suppliers of laboratory instrumentation.

Wirsam Scientific is one of seven companies currently signed up to exhibit during the conference.

Delegates at the Process Mineralogy '14 exhibition

There are three booths still available for rental, so if you would like some great exposure during the three days, please take a look at the relevant section of the conference website. Also take a look at the fine international programme.

Current sponsors

#ProcessMineralogy17

Provisional programmes for MEI's June Conferences in Falmouth now available

Join us in beautiful Cornwall in June, for Computational Modelling '17 and Physical Separation '17, which will run back to back over 4 days.

The provisional programmes for Computational Modelling and Physical Separation, which are still evolving, are now available for viewing on the conference websites.

Computational Modelling '17 covers the use of fundamental physical equations to predict the behaviour of complex systems. The keynote speaker is Prof. Stephen Neethling, of Imperial College, UK, and papers on comminution, flotation, hydromet and pyromet will feature in the technical sessions.

Physical Separation '17 will highlight developments in ore sorting, magnetic separation, gravity concentration, and classification. The keynote lectures will be given by two well known practitioners in this field, Sandy Lewis-Gray of Gekko Systems, Australia, and Tim Napier-Munn, former JKMRC Director (posting of 16th January). The conference will also give delegates the opportunity to visit the ruins of the 19th century mines in the Camborne-Redruth area, the 'birthplace of modern mining'.

It is not too late to contribute to the technical programmes. If you would like to present a paper, short abstracts should be submitted as soon as possible, and, if accepted, draft papers will be required for the unrefereed Proceedings, which will be available to delegates on USB at the conference. Final papers should be submitted no later than one month after the end of the conference. These will be refereed, and, if accepted, published in a special issues of Minerals Engineering journal.

#ComputationalModelling17

#PhysicalSeparation17

A Rising Star: Anita Parbhakar-Fox

The second person in our Rising Stars series is Dr. Anita Parbhakar-Fox, of the University of Tasmania, Australia, who we have met at various conferences around the world, and who has impressed us with her professionalism, enthusiasm and commitment to the minerals industry.

Anita with Prof. Barrie Johnson in Cambridge, UK, December 2015

Anita is 33 years old and trained as an environmental geologist at the RSM, Imperial College (MSc 2005) where she undertook a research project examining arsenic contamination in Bangladesh, which made her realise "that as a geoscientist I could use my skills to make a positive difference in terms of protecting human health and ecosystems". She built on this passion by completing a PhD (at CODES, University of Tasmania, 2012) focussed on developing techniques and protocols to assist the mining industry with predicting and managing acid rock drainage.

Anita with Julie Hunt and Elly van Veen, examining acid mine drainage at Rio Tinto, Spain

She worked on the fringe of the AMIRA P843/A geometallurgy projects and was in the very fortunate and unique position of exploring the links between geometallurgy and geoenvironmental datasets and establishing new proxy and domaining tools for early life-of-mine environmental planning. Since then her interest and participation in geometallurgy has grown through her first post-doc with CRC ORE (posting of 26 December 2016) and now with the Transforming the Mining Value Chain (TMVC) hub, particularly in the context of evaluating mine waste materials (tailings, slag and waste rock) as potential commodities and with the establishment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She says that "the time really is now to be in this very exciting field!"

Anita's main research continues to focus on improving early life-of-mine geoenvironmental characterisation, mainly through using hyperspectral and automated mineralogy tools as well as mineral chemistry analysis as funded directly by the TMVC Hub. In this framework she has had the opportunity to supervise and mentor PhD students and collaborate with industry partners to optimise the applications of these datasets with the potential to improve mine waste management strategies. In addition, she is a unit-coordinator/lecturer of BSc Environmental Geology, where she gets to directly teach 3rd year students her research outcomes- she says "there is nothing more satisfying at the end of the semester than seeing the students able to perform environmental logging, critically evaluating acid-base accounting datasets and recognising different mineral processing techniques for recovering metals from tailings. Tasmania is a fantastic place to teach this subject- there are many ‘natural laboratories’ to work in!"

This year Anita also had the pleasure of organising and chairing a special environmental session at the AusIMM geometallurgy conference. "This was a great opportunity to engage with the wider geometallurgy community and demonstrate how they can further embed environmental indicators into their overall systems" she said.

Anita with Regina Baumgartner (Goldfields) and Simon Dominy (Exchange Minerals)
at the geometallurgy conference

Other projects have been on working with the Tasmanian State Government and the Tasmanian mining industry geochemically evaluating historic and abandoned mine sites and identifying the best possible rehabilitation options based on the mineralogy and mineral chemistry. For example, she started work characterising a historic tailings facility with an honours student in 2014, where they determined that pyrite was cobaltiferous and she has since performed bioleaching tests at ALS Metallurgy (Burnie, Tasmania) to determine Co recovery (the preliminary findings were presented at Biohydrometallurgy ’16). This project will continue into next year. Her group has just completed a project examining the application of boiler ash generated by a local paper and pulp mill for controlling acid rock drainage generated by a range of different mine waste materials- using one industries waste to manage another’s - very much in keeping with circular economy principles. Finally, she has been working on optimising static and kinetic testing of waste materials directly with industry sponsors and will have funding to continue this next year with an Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering grant enabling collaboration with Process Mineralogy '17 sponsor Petrolab Ltd.   

I asked Anita what were her plans for the near future and her aspirations for the long term? She said "In the short-term, my career will continue to focus on improving mine waste management through developing tools, techniques and frameworks which allow for sustainable mining and the economic evaluation of mine waste material. This is an area of research with outcomes that are so important to society, and with groups like CSIRO and University of Cape Town developing better bioleaching of mine waste techniques, establishing new collaborations will be critical to achieve this. I have several new industry-collaborations planned for the new year, where we will be implementing new waste classification methods during the early life-of-mine stages. Next year the CODES MSc Geometallurgy course will run in Sep/Oct and I will be assisting in the development of an up-to-date programme which will include a range of industry and academic lecturers. Long term, my goal is to establish a formal ‘Mine Waste Evaluation’ research centre whereby researchers can work closely with industry to design bespoke best practice mine waste management strategies. However, with the mining industry paying such close attention to the UN SDGs, this could happen much sooner than planned!"

Anita tells me that outside her very busy professional life she does not have a great deal of time for other interests, although she enjoys architecture, technology, interior design and science fiction. Her life outside work revolves around her family life. She is married to Nathan Fox, an economic geologist, who she met on their first night of university at the RSM back in 2001, and they became instant friends. She says that having a partner in geoscience really helps, and "it's fantastic that our paths have recently crossed and we've been able to collaborate on some projects- not many couples can say they've published together- and enjoyed it"!

Anita and Nathan with Elaine Govender-Opitz of University of Cape Town,
at Sustainable Minerals '16

Nathan and Anita married in Sydney in 2009, and have two small children, Cohen (6) and Archibald (3).

Wedding day 2009, and Anita with Archibald and Cohen

It is always a pleasure to talk to Anita, and we at MEI look forward to following the progression of her career, which has got off to a flying start.

Twitter @barrywills

Report on the 2017 Canadian Minerals Processors Meeting

Our old friend Dr. Norman Lotter of Flowsheets Metallurgical Consulting Inc., Canada, was at last week's 49th CMP Meeting in Ottawa, Canada, and has kindly supplied us with this short report on the event:

 

A total of 537 delegates attended the CMP Meeting, from 11 countries. The plenary was entitled “The Need to Innovate: Celebrate the Past…Look to the Future”. Day 1 was spent on comminution; day 2 on flotation; and day 3 on gold and some innovations. In my view this was the strongest technical programme that I have seen at the CMP in five years.

Charlotte Gibson with Spencer Reeves
of Starkey and Associates

An interesting paper on reducing the dilution of spodumene concentrate with iron silicates by magnetic separation was presented by Dr. Charlotte Gibson, of SGS Canada.

Ed Wipf

A development in vibrating screen design at operations scale was reported by Ed Wipf, of EdRockMan IV, in which particularly the problem of classifying SAG mill discharge at a high tonnage has become a key problem because of wear and temporal overload situations. The new design is called Two-Mass Screens, and has rearranged the screen into a double-deck driven by a different mechanism. The campaign life of the screen has been considerably extended as a result of this different design.

Bern Klein

Prof Bern Klein, of UBC, has been leading a project on identification and rejection of waste rock at an early stage of the handling of the run-of-mine ore for the last fifteen years. Specific areas include:

- Characterization of ore sortability (heterogeneity)

- Selection of appropriate sorting scale and technology, according to the heterogeneity

- Standardization of testing and reporting procedures

- Development of sorting systems

It is planned to hold a series of workshops in Canada, South Africa and Germany and to setup attendance by video - conference connection for participants who cannot attend in person.

Tracy Holmes

A remarkable project on improving the flow of mill feed through a storage bin by testing and modelling the physical properties of the rock was presented by Tracy Holmes of Jenike and Johnson. The case study was at the Kittila Mine in northern Finland, where ratholing, bridging and freezing limit the free flow of ore to the mill. The modelling work led to a redesign of the bin with successful outcomes.

A reception was held on Tuesday evening for the organising committee of the recent IMPC meeting at Quebec City. The conference was very successful. In the photo below are some of the organising committee Norm Lotter, Jim Finch, Nathan Stubina, Jan Nesset and Don le Roux.

An interesting and worthwhile paper on the sustainable stabilisation of arsenic was presented by Gabriel Garcia Curiel, of Dundee Sustainable Technologies. Traditionally arsenic has been stabilised by a hydrometallurgical process, however in this work a different approach using vitrification and then set in glass. In this form there is no release of arsenic to the environment.

GoldCorp’s Simon Hille presented an update on their Peñasquito project in Mexico, where a brownfield expansion is adding a pyrite float to the final tailings of the main lead and zinc circuit to recover gold in a concentrate that undergoes an extractive process to refine the gold to bullion. These days, more and more of this refractory hosting of gold is developing, and we expect to see flotation becoming a more significant unit recovery process for this metal.

In the upcoming 50th meeting of the CMP, to be held in Ottawa in January 2018, the theme will be:

Day One: The Past, Day Two: The Present, Day Three: The Future.

The organising committee of the CMP and contributing authors are to be congratulated on a fine performance this year. The balance of academic and operational research and projects was just right, and the overall quality of papers was excellent.

Utilising iron-rich residues from metallurgical processes to synthesise inorganic polymers

Many hydro- and pyro-metallurgical processes produce Fe-rich residues that find limited applications; notable uses are in the raw meal for cement production, as aggregate in concrete, as abrasive blasting grit, and as media in geotechnical and road pavement applications.

At next year's Sustainable Minerals '18 conference in Namibia, Prof. Yiannis Pontikes, of KU Leuven, Belgium will introduce, in a keynote lecture, an alternative process where the Fe-rich residue is used as raw material in the synthesis of inorganic polymers. These materials show properties comparable to Portland cement while having a smaller environmental footprint.

Yiannis Pontikes is a BOF-ZAP associate professor at the Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium. He leads the Secondary Resources for Engineered Material (SREMat) research group, that consists of approximately 10 post-doctoral and postgraduate researchers. SREMat has built an expertise on the valorisation of residues towards ceramic, cement and inorganic polymer (geopolymer) formulations, from the level of binder synthesis all the way to full scale prototypes. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Waste and Biomass Valorization journal, and in 2015, was one of the founders of the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy, where he serves as the managing editor.

Twitter @barrywills

Talk of lithium and tin over a few pints

There was much to talk about last night, at the first Cornish Mining Sundowner of the year, held at the County Arms in Truro. It was very well attended, despite a few of the regulars being missing.

It was particularly good to see so many Camborne School of Mines (CSM) students, and it is always great to hear them talk enthusiastically about their future careers in the mining industry.

Barbara with CSM students

There were also a number of CSM alumni present. After leaving CSM with a PhD Klaas van der Wielen worked with Swiss company Selfrag and then with Wolf Minerals at the Drakelands tungsten mine in Devon. This month he took up a position with Truro-based Grinding Solutions Ltd, and it was good to see him back at a sundowner, along with his boss Nick Wilshaw.

A concentration of mineral processors at the bar

And always good to see our old friend Bentley Orchard, formerly with FLSmidth, then Weir Minerals, but now happily retired and a member of a local male voice choir.

Barbara with Bentley Orchard

Making his sundowner debut was CSM alumnus Tom Clifford, Consultancy Director of Riventa, Truro, a team of global water pump energy specialists. Tom played football for CSM and his company agreed to sponsor the current team, and below he is seen donating a cheque for £600 to club treasurer Jake Dowling.

And yes, much to discuss last night, particularly the headline news of the day, lithium. It has long been known that there are lithium brines in contact with granite in the local groundwater, which may be exploited, not only for this metal, but also for its heat; the high geothermal gradient could mean that the mine water has potential for sale to local housing and industries for heating purposes (see also posting of 10 May 2010).

High levels of lithium readings were first recognised in 1864 in water flowing into Cornish mines, but there was then no market for this lightest of metals, and when the mines in Cornwall closed it was largely forgotten. Now lithium, vital for rechargeable batteries, has been named a strategically important mineral for the UK by the Government because of its importance for developing industries and its scarcity. At present, it is mainly mined in remote parts of Chile, Australia and Nevada in the USA but without a home grown source of lithium the UK would be vulnerable to shortfall as global demand increases.

In a major announcement made to the Stock Market yesterday morning, private firm Cornish Lithium, led by Camborne School of Mines graduate Jeremy Wrathall, confirmed that it has secured the rights to develop and extract, via deep drill holes, the lithium deposits under Cornwall, undertaking the largest, single unified exploration project in the county's history, the vast deposits having the potential to unleash a new major industry in the county.

As yet there has been no mention of the economics of extracting the lithium from the waters, which is a slow process, involving evaporation then leaching. In the major lithium brine regions evaporation is by solar radiation in large ponds, which may not be too practical in the mild and wet Cornish climate.

Cornish Lithium has signed agreements to develop potential deposits beneath the ground held by three main landowners in Cornwall, including the Tregothnan estate of Lord Falmouth and South Crofty in Pool, which is at the centre of a potential resurgence in tin mining.

And although I have been sceptical about the tin mining revival at South Crofty, it does look like things are actually happening. Siltbuster Process Solutions (SPS) is taking part in trials to show the treatability of the mine water from South Crofty, which closed in 1998. Once completed, the results will be used to show the viability of dewatering and the reopening of the mine. SPS has been asked to treat the mine water (which includes dissolved contaminates and metals in solution, principally iron) by reducing the metal content to allow safe discharge of the water to the nearby Red River. If successful, the trial will be an important next step in the reopening of the mine, for Strongbow Exploration Inc., which acquired it in July 2016.

So, fingers crossed that 2017 might be the year of the great revival of the Cornish, as well as the global, mining industry.

Twitter @barrywills

Recent comments

There have been comments on the following postings since the last update:

In conversation with Chris Kelsey- mineral processing innovator
Happy 70th birthday Barbara
Prof. Heinrich Schubert honoured by IJMP Special Issue
Catching up in London after 26 years
Forthcoming merger of Minerals Engineering and IJMP
Seasons greetings from all at MEI
2016 with MEI
Prof. A.K. Biswas, 1934-2015
Is 2017 the year of the mining industry revival?
The increasing importance of physical separation methods
New book: Gold Ore Processing, 2nd edition

The Increasing Importance of Physical Separation Methods

Physical Separation '17 is building up to a must-attend event if you are involved with physical separation of minerals and coal. Physical separation features in almost every mineral processing circuit, encompassing a broad range of techniques and technologies including hydrocyclones, gravity concentration methods and thickeners, all of which make use of the inherent density difference between two mediums, as well as magnetic separation, and the increasingly important ore sorting technology.

One of the leading practitioners in the gravity concentration field is Sandy Lewis-Gray, Technical Director of Gekko Systems, Australia (see posting of 16 March 2015), one of the conference sponsors, who will present the first keynote at the conference, showing how opportunities for enhanced physical separation performance can now go beyond the common practice of optimising unit operation. Improved options exist for feed preparation ahead of the physical separation stage, enabling higher performance and lower cost outcomes for physical separation flowsheets and technologies.

Sandy and Elizabeth Lewis-Gray of Gekko Systems

Sandy will also co-author a paper with fellow Australian sponsor CRC Ore, who will describe the development of a new generation of comminution devices which can produce much steeper product size distributions than with conventional machines, and combined with precise classification will produce feeds which are well suited to gravity concentration and should also reduce flotation losses at both coarse and fine sizes. The use of such new applications in breakage technologies, combined with mineral liberation analysis to optimise liberation prior to the physical separation stage, provides options for pre-concentration and gangue rejection as well as better separation efficiency. The use of low cost gangue rejection and pre-concentration can be an intermediate step between mining and processing that allows lower cut-off grades in the mine whilst delivering higher grades to the mill, and conference sponsor Steinert Elektromagnetbau will assess the economic impact and viability of upgrading ores by pre- concentration using ore sorting.

Electronic ore sorting is becoming increasingly used, due to the development of rapid sensors in such sorters, but preconcentration prior to grinding is nothing new, and dense medium separation has long been an accepted method for treating coal and for early gangue rejection from certain metallic and non-metallic ores, including diamonds. Prof. Tim Napier-Munn (posting of 12 May 2014), former Director of Australia's JKMRC and a current CEEC Director, has many years of experience with dense medium cyclones, which were first patented in the 1940s, and will present the second keynote lecture at the conference, summarising the history of the process, considering its current status in mineral and coal processing, and suggesting ways in which the process might evolve. 

Tim (right) with fellow CEEC Director Mike Battersby at Comminution '14

So, there is much to look forward to in Falmouth in June. We will be putting the provisional programme together later this month, so it is not too late to submit an abstract for presentation at the conference, which immediately follows Computational Modelling '17 at the same venue.

Current Physical Separation '17 sponsors

#PhysicalSeparation17
#ComputationalModelling17

Light Rock in Tenerife

Tenerife, in Spain's Canary Islands archipelago, is the second largest ocean-island volcano on Earth after Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Only a 4 hour flight from the UK's provincial airports, and on the same time zone, it is a popular winter holiday destination due to its warm, sunny, sub-tropical climate.

Less than 200 miles from the African coast, Tenerife is dominated by the volcano Mount Teide, whose 3,718-metre (12,198 ft) summit is the highest point in Spain and the highest point above sea level in the islands of the Atlantic. If measured from its base on the ocean floor, it is at 7,500 m (24,600 ft) the third highest volcano on a volcanic ocean island in the world. It remains active, its most recent eruption being in 1909, and last October there were ill-informed scare stories that a major eruption was imminent.

Teide is the most visited national park in Spain and Europe and, by 2015, the eighth most visited in the world with some 3 million visitors yearly. If you can cope with the altitude the amazing lunar landscape is great hiking territory.  

Hiking in Teide National Park in 1997, under Mount Teide

The light coloured "lunar" rock in this area is ignimbrite, which is common in southern Tenerife. It has a characteristic pale yellow-orange colour and can be seen all around the southern coast, overlain with the later lava flows. 

Deposits of lava and ignimbrite above a typical basalt beach

A fine example of ignimbrite

Barbara and I returned yesterday from a week at Costa Adeje in southern Tenerife, topping up our vitamin D reserves, and it is evident in this area that just as a landscape is moulded by local geology, so is the local architecture. The UK 's beautiful Cotswolds area is famous for its buildings, made from the creamy Jurassic limestone, and southern Tenerife has ignimbrite, its Cotswold stone equivalent. As it is lightweight and easy to cut and shape, it is quarried and used locally as a building material.

A dry stone wall composed of ignimbrite

Tenerife's Ignimbrite is a pumice-dominated pyroclastic flow deposit formed from the cooling of pyroclastic material ejected from an explosive volcanic eruption around 600,000 years ago. As pyroclastic material settles it can build up thick layers, and if the temperature is sufficiently high (> 535°C) it can weld into rock, in a similar fashion to that which preserved the shapes of countless corpses after the 1st century eruption of Vesuvius. The pumice and basalt rocks that can be seen in many of the the outcrops were most likely picked up by the ground-hugging pyroclastic flow while it was cascading down the volcano's flanks.

All in all, Tenerife is a great escape from the winter blues and, if you are so inclined, also a great place to read the story of the island in the rocks.

Twitter @barrywills

New Book: Gold Ore Processing 2nd Edition

This new edition of Gold Ore Processing: Project Development and Operations, edited by Dr. Mike Adams, brings together all the technical aspects relevant to modern gold ore processing, offering a practical perspective that is vital to the successful and responsible development, operation, and closure of any gold ore processing operation.

This completely updated edition features coverage of established, newly implemented, and emerging technologies; updated case studies; and additional topics, including automated mineralogy and geometallurgy, cyanide code compliance, recovery of gold from e-waste, handling of gaseous emissions, mercury and arsenic, emerging non-cyanide leaching systems, hydro re-mining, water management, solid–liquid separation, and treatment of challenging ores such as double refractory carbonaceous sulfides.

Outlining best practices in gold processing from a variety of perspectives this is a must-have reference for anyone working in the gold industry, including metallurgists, geologists, chemists, mining engineers, and many others.

Important new appointments in Australia

Joe Pease and Alison Keogh

In its first five years, the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution (CEEC) has established itself as a trusted, impartial facilitator of all companies interested in promoting practical energy efficiency and productivity improvements in mineral processing operations, with a focus on the typically most energy-hungry activities of comminution. CEEC is a unique organisation and is an impartial facilitator of improvement, innovation and collaboration, strongly supported by CEEC’s sponsors who are mining and METS companies. MEI is proud to have CEEC as an industry advocate for our comminution conferences, including the upcoming Comminution '18.

CEEC Chairman Joe Pease was a keynote speaker at Comminution '16, and he has just announced the appointment of a permanent Chief Executive to lead the next phase of CEEC, Alison Keogh. Alison is a highly regarded mining professional with 25 years of experience in the mining and METS sector, and the MEI team greatly look forward to working with her. Full details of her appointment can be found on MEI Online.

And congratulations to Joe Pease, who in April will be presented with the AusIMM's most prestigious award, The Institute Medal (MEI Online).  Joe is one of the team of consultants at Mineralis, a group of nine minerals practitioners (which includes Flotation '17 keynote speaker Dr. Bill Johnson) whose experience covers management of mineral processing and smelting/refining operations, technical development and commercialisation, professional formation, commodities marketing, project design and due diligence, and operations turn-around. Mineralis announced a few days ago the appointment of Michael Young, who has 28 years’ experience in operating and technical roles treating complex mineral ores. Full details on MEI Online.

And another important appointment in Australia is that of Dr. Chu Yong Cheng of CSIRO, who starts as an Associate Editor of Hydrometallurgy on 1st January. Full details on MEI Online.

Twitter @barrywills

Woodgrove Technologies, the latest sponsor of Flotation '17

I am pleased to welcome a new sponsor to Flotation '17, and a fairly new company, Woodgrove Technologies of Canada, established only in 2009, but continuing the mandate of their previous company, Minnovex, in providing innovative, technologically advanced products for the mineral processing industry.

Prior to selling to SGS Canada in 2005, Minnovex carried out work in over 30 countries, with offices in five countries. The company specialised in research, development and implementation of technological advances in the mining industry for froth flotation, comminution, geometallurgical modeling and advanced process control. In the discipline of froth flotation, hundreds of flotation projects were carried out including on-site and off-site pilot plant work, flotation computer modelling and geometallurgy, benchmarking, flowsheet development, trouble shooting, advanced process control, and supply and start-up of full scale column cells and feed slurry aeration flotation equipment around the world.

In 2016 Woodgrove merged with Portage Technologies, combining two synergistic partners. Portage Technologies was established in 2010, focused on plant intelligence in the mining / mineral processing industry.

We look forward to introducing this dynamic new company to the flotation series in Cape Town in November.

Current Flotation'17 sponsors

 #Flotation17

Last month's most viewed posts

The 10 most popular blog postings in December can be seen below, together with the date of the posting and the total number of comments on the post.

Last month's most viewed posts
3 December 2016 (0)
Are these WASET conferences just a scam?
28 April 2013 (84)
Prof. Heinrich Schubert honoured by IJMP Special issue
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One of the world's oldest mining inns hosts the Christmas Cornish Mining Sundowner
23 December 2016 (0)
Gwithian Towans and some very ancient rocks
16 October 2015 (5)
10 good reasons to spend some time in Cape Town
12 December 2016 (0)
New Book: How Mining Works
19 December 2016 (0)
Good news and sad news from Australia
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Catching up in London after 26 years
10 December 2016 (1)
Nominations invited for 2016 MEI Young Person's Award
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Is 2017 the year of the mining industry revival?

A Happy New Year everyone, hope you have had, or are already having, a great holiday. 

This time last year I bid a cautious welcome to 2016, little expecting the momentous global events that would take most of us by surprise. I was cautiously optimistic of the long awaited revival in the fortunes of the mining industry, and towards the end of the year there was a definite upturn in trading on base metals, although precious metals suffered badly after a good start to the year.

So with seasonal glasses half full, let's look forward to what we have in store this year. Apart from four MEI Conferences, commencing with Process Mineralogy '17 in a couple of months' time, MEI is a media partner to various major events around the world.

We will miss next month's African Mining Indaba this year, which takes place in Cape Town next month. Last year's event attracted around 6000 delegates, considerably less than in the previous year, so it will be interesting to see what happens this year.

I will be representing MEI in Denver in February, for the Annual SME Meeting. Last year's registrations in Phoenix were well down on the previous year's attendance in Denver, but Denver, the home of SME, always attracts high numbers, so I am hopeful for this year.

We are media parners for ALTA 2017 in May, and the AusIMM's MetPlant 2017 in September, both being held in Perth, Australia, but we will not be represented at these events, nor at the International Mine Water Association Congress in Finland, or the SAIMM's Uranium 2017 Conference in Namibia. We wish them well.

Amanda will be representing MEI at MEC 2017 in Poland, and the International Biohydrometallurgy Symposium in Germany in 2017.

And somewhere and sometime in 2017 I hope to be presenting the 2016 recipient with the MEI Young Persons Award, for which nominations should be submitted by 3rd February.

I look forward to catching up with as many of you as possible this year.

Twitter @barrywills