Physical Separation '19, the 5th in the series, begins in Falmouth in 3 months time. Twenty years ago today the first physical separation conference organised by MEI began in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
This two day event was Gravity '99, held at the Renaissance Hotel, in the centre of Amsterdam. Sponsored by Knelson Concentrators and Holman-Wilfley UK Ltd, the symposium was attended by 30 high profile gravity separation specialists from 12 countries, representing Australia, Africa, Asia, North America and Europe.
Unfortunately I have only a couple of photos from the event. Below, Mike Hallewell, then with Holman-Wilfley, is at the Wilfley booth with Amanda Wills. Sorry, I can't remember the name of the man 3rd left, but on the far right is Richard Burt, of Cabot Mineral Development, Canada, who reviewed the role of gravity concentration in modern mineral processing plants in his keynote lecture. I would love to know where Richard is now, as it has been a while since we last met. Mike Hallewell, I am pleased to say, will be at Physical Separation '19, representing MPH Mineral Consultants, UK. Holman-Wilfley is a sponsor of the Falmouth conference.
Richard's keynote was followed by 18 papers dealing with Plant Practice, Classification and Dewatering, Gravity Concentrators and Optimisation and Control, describing the utilisation of gravity techniques not only in mainstream mineral processing, but also in diverse areas such as soil remediation and the recovery of gold from jewellery waste.
In the picture below Peter Davies explains the S-W Minerals Spiral to Hylke Glass (2nd left) and others (names unknown).
It would be great to hear from any of you who were there so many years ago.
Twitter @barrywills
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WOW, FAME!!!!! Thanks for the Update. Yes I do remember the conference which was a great success: I do remember at one point Barry & I sitting outside the lecture room, realizing that all the young guns were talking stuff way over our greying heads…
ReplyDeleteIt’s many years since I ‘retired’ from Cabot – 2002 to be exact. I set up my own consultancy business (GraviTa) continuing as an outside consultant to Cabot [I’ve often wondered that as before I was regarded as an in-house consultant was the term for my new role ‘outhouse consultant’!] as well as a variety of others, in the tantalum, tin, tungsten, gold and lithium spheres. This resulted in some Directorships with Junior Mining Companies with ventures in Brazil, Mozambique and elsewhere. [We had Mike Hallewell out to Mozambique helping to sort out our tantalum mine, and I’ve seen him occasionally since]. From 2009-11 I was President of the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center (T.I.C.) and was deeply involved in the legalization of the supply chain from 3T artisanal mining in the (African) Great Lakes Region. Whilst I have tried to hang up my shingle on various occasions, I do get called back to work on occasions (right now I’m chairing the Ekeberg Prize selection committee for example). I was even in your neck of the woods last year trying to make Wolf’s tungsten mine viable….
That’s me. Still travelling a bit, but now for pleasure. Have a great year with the conferences.
Richard Burt, Canada
Great to hear from you Richard. It's been a long time since we last caught up. Shame that, even without your input, the tungsten mine at Hemerdon was doomed for failure. If you are ever down in Cornwall, you know where we are!
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