ALTA 2019 - Tuesday May 21st

There were 12 papers presented today, on the topics of Extraction and Purification, Filtration, and Leaching Process Development.

Mike Hourn, General Manager at Glencore Technology (sponsors of MEI's Flotation '19 and Comminution '20 conferences) kicked things off with "First Commercialisation of the Albion Process for Copper".

Mike began by giving us an overview of Glencore's activities in Africa and the challenges involved, before running us through the key highlights of the Albion Process. He then lead us through the development of the Albion Process for copper at the Sable Copper Project in Zambia, which averaged a 98.5% copper recovery rate, thereby proving that the technology could be used with copper.

He was followed by Bravo Mbao, Regional Technical Manager at Solvay (who are also sponsoring Flotation '19), who presented, "Acorga CR60 Crud Mitigation Reagent - Commercial Trials in North America and Africa". Rather than deal with crud on a reactive basis, Solvay has developed a reagent which inactivates crud formation under certain conditions in copper SX, according to the results of these trials.

Bravo can be seen below with some of his colleagues at Solvay's exhibit booth.

Tryphena Mitchell, Ashley Stewart, Alun James & Bravo Mpao of Solvay

Below are a selection of photos from the rest of the day:

Gary Zhang, Fumin Guo & Jean-Marc Vesselle from Sunresin New Materials

Karin Soldenhoff (ANTSO) & Peter Haig (BASF)

Geoff McGaw and Mark Mulligan from FLSmidth

Frank Roberto (Newmont Goldcorp), Denis Shiers (CSIRO), Danielle Hewitt (CSIRO Mineral Resources), Scott Shuey (Newmont Mining) and Judy McShane (BHP Nickel West)

Boyd Willis, Principal at Boyd Willis Hydromet Consulting, who presented a paper on "The Platina Scandium Project - One Step Closer to Production"

Lunch in the exhibition area

Grant Wellwood (Jenike & Johanson)