Flotation '21: Day 1 update

Monday 8th November

Flotation '21 is the 10th in the MEI flotation series, and the first to be totally online. Although we would have liked to have been in Cape Town as originally scheduled, the need to go virtual has enabled many researchers and  operators, who would not have been able to travel to South Africa, to attend Flotation '21 from the comfort of their own homes and offices, and there are many new names on the list of the 256 delegates registered from 29 countries.

Jon Wills opened the conference this morning, welcoming the delegates, with a special mention to those entering the MEI fold from three new countries, Belarus, Dominican Republic and Panama, and thanking our consultant, Prof Jim Finch, and our sponsors for their loyal support.

It is now 117 years since Elmore's patent saved the mining industry from an existential crisis, and flotation has dominated the mining industry ever since. Many argue that there is nothing really new in flotation and that research is in many cases treading on old ground. While this might be true of many of the papers submitted to academic journals, Jon said that this week's focused timetable, which has been extended to five very full days, demonstrates that flotation continues to thrive and evolve and that there is much to report that is innovative.

This week's programme truly reflects the progressive evolution of flotation, the mining industry's most ubiquitous and important technology. As we move into the 4th Industrial Revolution and the era of electric cars and renewable energy, never before has there been such a demand on the supply of finite resources, and flotation will play a very important future role in the quest for a circular economy.

Sponsor Glencore Technology is featuring the Jameson Concentrator at the conference, and delegates were invited to enter a competition to guess the throughput of the Jameson Concentrator featured on the Glencore website. The prize was a US$2,000 voucher good for more than 270,000 hotels around the world, and following Jon's opening remarks, Glencore Technology's Marketing Manager Stephen Johnson announced that the winner of the prize was Dr. Diego Mesa, of Imperial College, UK. 

The inventor of the Jameson Cell, Prof. Graeme Jameson, is one of the great names in mineral processing, and to celebrate his 85th birthday this year Prof. Jim Finch opened the day by presenting a keynote lecture highlighting Prof. Jameson's life and work.

In Graeme's quest for a universal flotation machine to effectively treat coarse and fine particles, Jim first compared the performance of various machines, columns, mechanical and Jameson Cells and then examined the practical reasons for employing Jameson Cells. The first installation was at Mt. Isa Mines in 1989 to treat heavy media plant slimes and was hailed as a major breakthrough in column flotation technology, as efficient and productive as existing columns four times its size. Since then it has gone from strength to strength, and the latest installation is at Canada's New Britannia Mine, the first all-Jameson cell concentrator (posting of 7th April 2020).

Perhaps not as well known is another of Graeme's inventions, the Concorde Cell, which has been put into operation by Metso-Outotec at a nickel operation in Western Australia, and now Graeme is well under way with his quest for a universal flotation machine, with the NovaCell, which can recover mineral particles over a wide particle size range, using the concept of the high-shear aeration zone of the Concorde cell for ultrafine separation and a fluidised bed for coarse particle collection.

Graeme is an outstanding scientist, who has received many major awards and Jim was proud to present him with the IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award at the IMPC in Quebec in 2016.

Jim and Graeme in Quebec, 2016

The keynote got the conference off to an excellent start and was a great prelude to the day's 12 presentations on bubbles and froths, and to the panel discussion on the future research needs in flotation (see posting of 29th August). Chaired by Romke Kuyvenhoven, dynamic young researchers from around the world shared their views, and took questions from conference delegates.

There was very wide ranging and intense discussions, with very useful interaction with delegates via the Discussion Forum, which will be open for several days. We really appreciate the efforts that Romke and the panelists made, preparing the groundwork prior to the conference.

Topics discussed over the 2-hour session included the funding of research and how it differs around the world and in academia and industry. It was felt that collaboration between academia and industry is crucial, as there is no substitute for the level of knowledge that an industry partner can provide.

Not surprisingly, as COP26 is taking place in Glasgow this week there was much discussion on the environment and sustainability, and the need for innovation, coarse flotation being a priority to reduce energy consumption. 

Some of the delegates suggested that the speed of innovation could be increased by better access to the scientific literature to those outside of university libraries.  The classic expensive publishing houses like Elsevier, Wiley or Springer are already under pressure and open access is the key for sustainable research and is also what public funding sources are starting to demand more and more. It was also pointed out that industry associations, such as SME, AusIMM, SAIMM and others have got together to share  historical conference proceedings and publications to their members through the onemine.org platform.

How can we attract students to flotation was discussed at some length, and how do we get the public to understand the importance of mining and mineral processing? Where will the next generation of mineral processors come from? Possibly from China, as Zhiyong Gao said that there are 15,000 undergraduate mineral processing students at Chinese universities, with 800 staff!

The impact of Covid-19 was briefly discussed, and what will the new normal be like? Adrian Singh of GoldOre thinks that the current conference platform is great and that there is most definitely a place for it in the new normal. I agree and Flotation '23 will hopefully be face to face but with an online aspect as well.

The live panel discussion was recorded and is now available on demand for the next 6 months, as are all the presentations this week, so it is not too late to register!

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@barrywills