What are the future research needs in flotation?

This will be the topic of debate at one of the two panel discussions at Flotation '21 in November.

Dynamic young researchers from around the world will share their views, and take questions from conference delegates, in the discussion chaired by Romke Kuyvenhoven, who joined Capstone's Minera Santo Domingo in Chile earlier this year, as Director Technical Services and in charge of the development of the mine plan and Cu/Fe/Co concentration/recovery. 

In 2014 Romke, then with Gecamin, was conference manager for the IMPC in Santiago Chile and is 1st left on the great photo below, at the Farewell function.

Romke, with Osvaldo Bascur, Pablo Brito-Parada, Barbara and Barry Wills,
Jan Cilliers, Robin Batterham, Guvan Onal and Kevin Galvin

Representing the UK on the panel is Dr. Pablo Brito-Parada (3rd left in the photo) of Imperial College, London. Pablo is an editor of Minerals Engineering and his work on froth flotation includes the modelling of complex phenomena in the pulp and froth zones and the use of experimental techniques to characterise these systems. He has led optimisation testwork at flotation plants worldwide to enhance metallurgical recovery and assess flotation cell design.

There is more published research on flotation from China than from any other country at present, and representing Central South University, Changsha, the number 1 ranked of the 38 universities in China with mineral processing departments, is Dr. Zhiyong Gao. He is also a Minerals Engineering editor and an outstanding researcher in one of the main thrusts of the mineral processing department at CSU, flotation chemistry. In 2018 Zhiyong was promoted to Vice-Dean of the School of Mineral Processing and Bioengineering at CSU making him the youngest Vice-Dean, at 34 years of age, among the 30 schools at CSU. He was a very worth recipient of the 2018 MEI Young Person's Award.

Presenting Zhiyong with his award at Flotation '19

The latest recipient of the MEI Young Person's Award is Dr. Ahmad Hassanzadeh, from Iran. He recently joined the impressive team at Maelgwyn Mineral Services, one of the Flotation '21 sponsors. He was awarded an Erasmus Exchange Program grant in 2016 and exchanged as a PhD candidate in the Department of Mineral Resources Engineering at the Montan University of Leoben, Austria. Later, in December 2018, he successfully defended his PhD thesis on the effect of hydrodynamic parameters on particle-bubble interactions in flotation and graduated from the Mineral Processing Department of Istanbul Technical University.  

During the last year of his doctorate program Ahmad was selected by Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany, as a post-doctoral research associate and worked two years (2018-2020) in the Processing Department of Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Research and Technology (HIF), Germany.

The head of mineral processing at HIF is Dr. Martin Rudolph, who will represent Germany on the panel. Martin was highlighted as a Rising Star in 2018 and as a PhD student published and presented many papers receiving the first prize in the International Young Scientist Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia at the Gornyi Institute (Mining Institute) in April 2012, in the section on nanotechnologies. He has a special interest in nanoparticle systems and interfacial phenomena and colloidal interactions.

Martin (centre) at the Festo booth at Flotation '17

Representing Australia will be Dr. Liza Forbes, a Senior Research Fellow at the JKMRC. Liza's main interest lies in integrating fundamental and applied aspects of flotation research, to develop new and improved processing technologies. She specifically focuses on flotation reagent chemistry, mineral surface chemistry and base-metal sulphide electrochemistry. Liza graduated with a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cape Town in 2007. Since then, she has worked at the N.B.Keevil Mining Institute, University of British Columbia; the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Melbourne; and CSIRO Mineral Resources. Previously she worked at a metallurgist at the Bafokeng Rasimone Platinum Mine, Anglo Platinum in South Africa. She has since been involved with a number of industry research projects with companies such as Kennecott Copper Co, Zijin Mining, Newmont, Newcrest, Sytec Technology Solutions and Anglo Coal.

Liza (centre) with Amanda Wills and Nee San Yap at Flotation '17

Dr. Ronel Kappes will represent North America on the panel. She is Director of Processing at Newmont Goldcorp Corporation, USA. Ronel has metallurgical development experience in a wide-range of commodities,including gold, copper, lead, zinc and platinum group metals and is passionate about flotation, gold hydrometallurgy and mineral processing in general. Her background includes fifteen years as a metallurgical technical expert with Newmont Mining, with international experience through her time working on a variety of projects including operations and projects located in Ghana, Australia, Peru and Indonesia. She also serves as Newmont's Executive Sponsor and liaison with the University of Utah.

This is a panel discussion not to be missed if you have any interest in what the major areas of research should be focused on in the next few decades.

And a final reminder that if you would like to present your work at Flotation '21, the abstract deadline is the end of this week.

#Flotation21