Future flotation circuits and machines

There have been major innovations in flotation machines over recent years, which has led to developments and improvements in flotation circuits.

So where is all this going, what will flotation circuits look like in future years, and what will be the major developments in flotation machine design?

This will be the subject of one of the panel discussions at Flotation '21 in November and we seek your views on this, which will be of help to the chairman of the conference, Peter Amelunxen, Vice-President of Technical Services for Flotation '21 sponsor Hudbay Minerals, Canada, and the first recipient of the MEI Young Person's Award back in 2011.

Peter Amelunxen with the 2018 Young Person's Award winner,
Dr, Zhiyong Gao, at Flotation '19

Under Peter's guidance a flotation plant consisting entirely of Jameson Cells has been built at Hudbay's New Britannia operation (posting of 7th April 2020), with Glencore Technology engaged for technical support. Flotation '19 gave the Hudbay team an opportunity to discuss results, share ideas, and build relationships with Glencore and with Prof. Graeme Jameson, the inventor of the eponymous cell.

We are privileged to have Prof. Jameson on the panel. A Laureate Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, he has been honoured as a Fellow of perhaps the most prestigious scientific organisation in the world, the Royal Society (posting of 15th May 2018) . He has presented research papers at all MEI’s Flotation conferences and was a keynote lecturer at Flotation ’09 with his paper New Directions in Flotation Machine Design. He is a long-standing member of the Editorial Board of Minerals Engineering and is the recipient of many major awards, including the Australian Prime Minister’s Prize for Science.  In 2013 he was awarded the SME’s prestigious Antoine Gaudin Award in Denver and I was pleased to nominate him for International Mining’s Hall of Fame, into which he was inaugurated in 2014. In 2016 he was the recipient of the IMPC's Lifetime Achievement Award. Prof. Jameson's life and work will be the subject of the first keynote lecture at the conference, given by Prof. Jim Finch, also a recipient of the  IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award and the Antoine Gaudin Award.

Profs. Jameson and Finch at Flotation '15

Professor Jameson has made an outstanding contribution to the Australian economy and the environment as the inventor of what is considered by many to be the nation's biggest export earner in the last 25 years. In the true mark of a scientist, 30 years on from his initial breakthrough discovery, and at the age of 85, he is still fine-tuning and improving the Jameson Cell, and pushing the boundaries of flotation with his new invention the coarse flotation NovaCell, which he feels is much more important, because if flotation can be achieved at coarser particle sizes less grinding is needed, using less energy and resulting in less wear and tear on the grinding equipment. 

There should be interesting discussion on coarse flotation between Prof Jameson and fellow panelist Dr. Eric Wasmund, the Vice President of Global Flotation Business with Flotation '21 sponsor Eriez Flotation Division, Canada. Eriez invented and market the Hydrofloat Cell, for flotation at coarse particle sizes, and the Eriez Flotation product line encompasses flotation cells, gas spargers, mini-pilot plants, slurry distributors and flotation test equipment. The company has designed, supplied and commissioned more than 900 column flotation systems worldwide for cleaning, roughing and scavenging applications in metallic and non-metallic processing operations.  It is also well known for its StackCell®, a small stackable mechanical cell offering reduced mixing in the cell and shorter residence times, which was featured, along with the Hydrofloat Cell, at Flotation '19. 

Eric Wasmund (2nd left) at the Eriez booth at Flotation '19

Dr. Dariusz Lelinski, the Global Product Director of sponsor FLSmidth, USA, has been a regular contributor to the flotation series. A respected mineral processing expert with international experience in product and process design, test planning, results evaluation, survey and industrial operation support, he will lead the FLSmidth team which will launch the WEMCO nextGEN flotation machine at the conference.

Dariusz Lelinski (2nd left) at Flotation '19. Also in the picture are Martin Rudolph (left)
and Romke Kuyvenhoven (2nd right) who will be involved
with the first panel discussion at Flotation '21

Prof. Juan Yianatos, of Santa Maria University, Chile, is the 4th member of the panel. Juan was President of the XXVII IMPC, which was held in Santiago, Chile in 2014. A long serving member of the Minerals Engineering Editorial Board, he will bring to the panel his expertise in applied research on process modelling, diagnosis and control, particularly in flotation including column flotation.

Juan Yianatos with Prof. John Monhemius
at the IMPC in Quebec, 2016

We look forward to a dynamic panel discussion, and a reminder that if you would like to make a presentation at the conference, abstracts should be submitted by the end of this month.  Updates can be found at #Flotation21.