Physical Separation '22: Final Call for Abstracts

A reminder that the first of MEI's online events this year is now only 3 months away, so if you are planning on submitting an abstract then we invite you to do so by the end of February.

Physical Separation '22 will be online from May 9-11 2022.  This will be MEI's 7th Physical Separation conference and will bring together researchers and operators who have common interests in:

• Gravity concentration methods - single and multi-G separators and dense medium separation
• Classification techniques - hydrocyclones, air classifiers etc.
• Solid-Liquid Separation - thickeners, clarifiers etc.
• Electronic Sorting
• Magnetic and electrostatic separation
• Microwave technology. There are many aspects of mineral processing where the use of microwaves has potential and papers dealing with the enhancement of physical processes by microwaves are encouraged.

The conference is sponsored by Hudbay Minerals and Gravity Mining and media partners are International Mining and Imformed. Our Industry Advocates are the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution (CEEC), the Cornwall Mining Alliance and the Critical Minerals Association.

#PhysicalSeparation22

New book: Extractive Metallurgy of Copper

The drive towards electric vehicles and wind turbines has had a marked effect on the demand for that most essential of metals, copper. The copper price has more than doubled since April last year and many analysts forecast a doubling of copper demand in the next 30 years, but there is much uncertainty as to where the supply will come from.

5-year copper prices

Mined ore grades are falling and ore-bodies have become more complex, with higher levels of impurities, for which mines may be penalised at the smelting stage if left unchecked. In an excellent article in Engineering & Mining Journal, European Editor Carly Leonida asked where do the greatest optimisation opportunities lie and what will future flowsheets look like? Advances in copper processing technologies from the past 30 years nearly all fall into the category of “the bigger, the better” - higher volume flotation cells, massive high-pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs), super-sized concentrators. For some time now, we have been chasing economies of scale, which will soon cease to exist.

So the publication last month of the 6th edition of Extractive Metallurgy of Copper, comes at an opportune time.  Authored by Mark Schlesinger, Kathryn Sole, William Davenport and Gerardo Alvear the book expands on previous editions, including sections on ore-genesis and copper mineralogy and new processes for efficiently recovering copper from ever-declining Cu-grade mineral deposits. 

The book evaluates processes for maintaining concentrate Cu grades from lower grade ores. Sections cover the recovery of critical byproducts (e.g., cesium), worker health and safety, automation as a safety tool, and the geopolitical forces that have moved copper metal production to Asia (especially China) and new smelting and refining processes. Indigenous Asian smelting processes are evaluated, along with energy and water requirements, environmental performance, copper electrorefining processes, and sulfur dioxide capture processes. The book puts special emphasis on the benefits of recycling copper scrap in terms of energy and water requirements. Comparisons of ore-to-product and scrap-to-product carbon emissions are also made to illustrate the concepts included.

The book is aimed at university students, working engineers and management graduates. Two–year college science and engineering graduates should also be able to handle most of the material. It will also be welcomed by management consultants, legal experts, and those in similar professions who require an industry overview for particular assignments.

@barrywills

Innovation in Materials Manufacturing via the Circular Economy

We are very please to welcome Prof. Nabil Nasr, Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, as a keynote lecturer at July's Sustainable Minerals '22. His research interests focus on the circular economy, life cycle engineering, cleaner production and sustainable product development, and he is considered an international leader in research and development efforts in these disciplines. He feels that in response to growing materials challenges, there is a need to address those challenges at a national level with clear goals and objectives. 

Prof. Nasr is also the founding Chief Executive Officer of the REMADE Institute, formed in 2017 as a public/private partnership focused on developing transformational technologies to accelerate the transition to a Circular Economy for plastics, metals, fibers and e-waste, focusing on driving down the cost of technologies essential to reuse, recycle and remanufacture such materials. 

Prof. Nasr's presentation will provide an overview of the REMADE Institute and its technology strategy, which seeks to enable early stage applied research and development of key industrial platform technologies. This could dramatically reduce the embodied energy, emissions, and waste and increase material availability associated with industrial-scale materials production and processing, by eliminating and/or mitigating technical and economic barriers that prevent greater material recycling, recovery, remanufacturing and reuse.

Prof. Nasr's lecture will be one of three keynotes at Sustainable Minerals '22 and there is currently a call for abstracts for the online event, which should be submitted by the end of April.

Current Sustainable Minerals '22 sponsors

#SustainableMinerals22

January Mining Sundowner with historic news from Cornwall amid concern over global lithium supply

Last night's Cornish Mining Sundowner was held at the County Arms Hotel in Truro, with a modest attendance of eleven, which included two Camborne School of Mines students attending their first sundowner. Molly Gordon and Ben Mantell-Jolly are MSc Mining Engineering students, who both intend to start their careers in Australia later in the year, Molly with Mount Isa Mines. They were accompanied by Dr. Pat Foster, Director of Education at CSM, who updated me on progress with CSM's Mining Degree Apprenticeship (see posting of 26 November 2021), which is hoped to commence in September.

Pat, Ben and Molly

Nick and Pauline Clarke, Barry and Barbara Wills

There was much to discuss last night, apart from Boris Johnson's latest adventures, and it was good to talk to British Lithium's Manager of Metallurgy, KP van der Wielen about the good news this month of an historic addition to Cornwall's illustrious mining history. British Lithium said early this month that its pilot plant in Roche, just 17 miles from Truro in East Cornwall, has successfully extracted lithium carbonate from the mica in the county’s granite bedrock. It is the first time commercial-grade lithium carbonate has been produced from the mica in granite rock, the company having identified a resource of more than 100 million tonnes in a former china clay mine near St Austell, enough to support a projected annual production of 20,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate. The plant, which was funded by the UK Government, will shortly start producing 5kgs of lithium carbonate each day for customers to trial. The company’s unique pilot plant approach incorporates all processing stages, from quarrying through to high purity lithium carbonate production. This includes crushing, grinding and beneficiating the ore, custom-built electric calcination at low temperatures, acid-free leaching and multiple purification steps that include ion-exchange.

Plans are underway to build a full-scale plant, with the aim of producing 21,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate each year, which would be around one-third of the total lithium supply the UK is expected to need to meet future electric vehicle demand.

Pete Shepherd, KP van der Wielen, David Mildren, Treve Mildren and Pat Foster

British Lithium is not the only company targeting Cornwall’s lithium reserves. Last November Cornish Lithium received investment to fast track its lithium mining projects in the county (posting of 9th December 2021). It also plans to build a processing plant near its mining sites to “build a value chain” for electric vehicle battery production in Cornwall. Together the two firms could create around 860 jobs in the county and if the mines and processing plants attract investment for a battery factory a further 3,000 jobs could be created. 

Prices for lithium, a critical metal for EV batteries, reached record highs last month, causing concerns that there won’t be enough of the metal to fuel the switch away from combustion engines, so now should be a prime time to build a mine. However the pandemic has temporarily closed mines, factories and borders and destabilised flows of lithium and other critical metals.

Back in August (posting of 26 August 2021), I reviewed current developments in lithium production and highlighted the announcement from Rio Tinto that it will spend $2.4 billion building a lithium mine in Serbia, from an entirely new mineral source, jadarite (LiNaSiB3O7OH). What makes the deposit unique is that both boron and lithium are contained in one mineral, which was new to science and which was later confirmed as a new mineral by the International Mineralogical Association. Rio Tinto’s Serbian team named it jadarite. 

Rio said its Jadar project in Serbia was expected to start operating in 2026 and hit full-production in 2029. The investment would turn the company into a top-10 lithium producer globally and position it “as the largest source of lithium supply in Europe for at least the next 15 years.” Rio Tinto targeted an initial mine life of 2.3 million tonnes of lithium carbonate over 40 years. Following ramp-up to full production in 2029, the mine would produce roughly 58,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate, 160,000 tonnes of boric acid (borates are used in solar panels and wind turbines) and 255,000 tonnes of sodium sulphate per year.

However within months of unveiling these ambitious plans local opponents organised a movement and authorities subsequently suspended a land-use plan for the proposed mine, and only yesterday Serbia revoked Rio Tinto’s lithium exploration licences, bowing to the protesters who opposed the development of the project on environmental grounds.

Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly difficult to build a mine today, it being far easier to organise opposition, often in rural and isolated communities. Speaking in London Last month, Mark Cutifani, CEO of Anglo American plc said “Despite mining’s contribution to almost every aspect of modern life, the industry is still seen as one that takes more than it gives.” 

Following the potential demise of the Serbian Project, Rio announced last month that it would buy the Rincon lithium project in Argentina, a large undeveloped lithium brine project located in the heart of the lithium triangle in the Salta Province of Argentina. The direct lithium extraction technology proposed for the project has the "potential to significantly increase lithium recoveries" compared to solar evaporation ponds, Rio said, adding that a pilot plant was currently running at the site.

According to the International Lithium Association the growth in EVs could see lithium demand increase by over 40 times by 2030, last year being about 320,000 tonnes and is expected to hit 1 million by 2025 and 3 million by 2030. The rising price of lithium and the growing divergence between supply and demand is likely to lead to an increase in the price of EVs, as automakers pass the cost on to the consumer, batteries being the most expensive part of an EV.

Hopefully we will have more lithium news from Cornwall at the next sundowner, which will be at Tyacks Hotel in Camborne on Thursday 17th February.

@barrywills

It's not too late to register for MEI's 2021 conferences

MEI's four conferences last year were all online events, and as all the presentations and panel discussions were recorded they are still available on demand, so it is not too late to register for the events and view the presentations at leisure.

The programmes for the conferences can be found by clicking on the links below:

Comminution '21
Biomining '21
Sustainable Minerals '21
Flotation '21

and you can register at:

Comminution '21
Biomining '21
Sustainable Minerals '21
Flotation '21

Cornish company Gravity Mining is the latest sponsor of Physical Separation '22

We are very pleased to welcome Gravity Mining Ltd as a first time sponsor of an MEI conference. The company is the home of the original Mozley Multi Gravity Separator (MGS) which they have improved in recent years, focusing on reliability and ease of use.  Apart from the MGS the company has a range of products, and works closely with Cornish company SW Metallurgical Services to supply top quality mineral spirals for gravity mining applications.

Technical Director Treve Mildren worked with MGS inventor Richard Mozley as a Design Engineer before founding Gravity Mining and his brother David, Sales and Marketing Director, who has spent a lifetime in operational and marketing roles with mining equipment around the world, said "We are looking forward to participating in the Physical Separation '22 conference and learning about new ideas and developments. Gravity Mining's MGS is well known in its traditional tin, tungsten and tantalum markets worldwide, but we hope that sponsoring this conference will raise the product and brand exposure in new markets. Based on excellent pilot scale performance, several new chromite, gold and rare earths projects are evaluating production plants using the MGS. Learning how to recycle Waste Electrical Electronic Equipment (WEEE) has been a new challenge as well". 

In Camborne with David and Treve Mildren

There is currently a final call for abstracts for the conference, which should be submitted before the end of February. Two high profile keynote lecturers have already signed up. Prof. Kevin Galvin, of the University of Newcastle, Australia, will discuss new challenges for gravity concentration and classification of fine particles and Prof. Neil Rowson, of the University of Birmingham and Bunting-Redditch, UK, will review the role of magnetic separation in the development of critical and strategic metal recovery flowsheets.

Much to look forward to in May.

Current Physical Separation '22 sponsors

#PhysicalSeparation22 

Human Rights, Responsible Business Conduct and Sustainable Mining

Canada’s mining industry is one of the largest in the world and is among the top producers of commodity metals and minerals, as well as a leader in the mining sector overseas with Canada home to half of the world’s publicly listed mining and mineral exploration companies. 

We are honoured to have Sherri Meyerhoffer, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), as a keynote speaker at Sustainable Minerals '22, where she will provide information on responsible business conduct and how mining companies can prevent and remedy human rights issues that may result from their operations. 

Given Canada’s overseas mining footprint, and the potential impact that mining operations can have on mining workers, communities and the environment, both positive and negative, it is critical that mining companies, including Canadian companies, operate in a sustainable and responsible manner. This includes putting in place measures to respect the rights of mining workers, and communities living in close proximity to mining operations. 

Sheri Meyerhoffer was appointed Canada’s first Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise in 2019. She is a Canadian lawyer with seventeen years experience in the upstream oil and gas industry, and thirteen years experience in international governance, rule of law and human rights. She has worked in Bhutan, Bolivia, Cuba, China, India, Jamaica, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia and the USA. Ms. Meyerhoffer has a Juris Doctor from the University of Saskatchewan and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School with a Master in Public Administration and Certificate in Management, Leadership and Decision Sciences.

We welcome Sherri to MEI's ever increasing fold.

#SustainableMinerals22

Promet101 to sponsor four upcoming MEI Conferences

We are delighted to announce that Promet101, a sponsor of the last four MEI Flotation Conferences, has agreed to sponsor four of MEI's forthcoming conferences.

Founded by CEO Stuart Saich, ProMet 101 is an international company, headquartered in Australia, with offices in Canada and Chile, whose objectives are to provide sound solutions to clients' requirements and ensure that a well-documented path from ore definition, metallurgical testing programs through to process design criteria is provided for subsequent scrutiny by third parties such as engineering entities engaged to complete detail designs or peer reviews for project financing.

Stuart Saich with MEI's Jon Wills at Flotation '19

Stuart said "So why does a small company like ours continue to support MEI through good and tough times. Well if you think carefully about it, how much effort is put into developing a technical paper. 100 or 200 hours per paper? Then what about the costs involved? By supporting MEI you are supporting a platform for the advancement of our own industry by willing individuals to advance the scientific knowledge of the very industry we belong to. What is the inherent intellectual value or investment into the knowledge base of each conference at which say 100 technical papers are presented? I would say $1-2 million a piece. And from that investment springs further value growth as ideas advance and commercialisation grows.

Why do we invest in supporting MEI every year, because it makes absolute sense! It is not about me, it is about our industry!"

The company committed to sponsorship of the first Integration, Optimisation & Design of Mineral Processing Circuits (IntegratedMinPro '22) almost two years ago, and were later joined by Hudbay Minerals as sponsors.

A month after IntegratedMinPro '22, Sustainable Minerals '22 will be held online in July, and Promet101 now joins Zeiss, Metso:Outotec, Hudbay Minerals and Weir Minerals as sponsors.

Later in the year Process Mineralogy '22 will be held, hopefully as a hybrid event, dependent on the pandemic situation, and Promet101 joins Zeiss and Bruker as current sponsors. We hope to announce a definite date and venue for this conference next month.

Flotation '23 is some time away and by then we hope to be back at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town, where Promet101 will join Hudbay Minerals, Magotteaux, Gold Ore and Metso:Outotec, the other companies who have so far committed to this event.

New book: Acid Mine Drainage: From Waste to Resources

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is essentially the flow of water polluted with metals and other substances from existing and old mining areas and is a major source of pollution. A wide range of technologies are available for preventing AMD generation and/or treating AMD before discharge, but there is a shift towards recovery of industrially useful materials and products from AMD. 

Acid Mine Drainage: From Waste to Resources explores novel methods developed for the reuse and/or recovery of industrially useful materials from AMD including generation, prediction, prevention, and remediation processes. It includes legislation and policy frameworks governing AMD and its environmental/health impacts.

The volume, published this year, is edited by Geoffrey S. Simate and Sehliselo Ndlovu, of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Prof. Ndlovu will be presenting a keynote lecture at MEI's Sustainable Minerals '22 next year.

The book provides a detailed overview of mining operations and discusses the geochemical and hydrogeological context of AMD formation, prediction and impact, presenting a holistic approach to AMD generation, prediction, prevention, and remediation processes, including reuse, recycling, and recovery of industrially useful materials from AMD.

The book also gives a detailed overview of the legislation and policy regulatory framework governing the management of AMD and analyses the effects of AMD on the environment and health.

This volume is aimed at researchers and professionals in metallurgical engineering, chemical engineering, environmental engineering, and mining engineering, including policy makers.

Nominations invited for the 2021 MEI Young Person's Award

As we enter the 3rd year of the pandemic, it is a shame that we have not been able, as yet, to present Nikhil Dhawan and Ahmad Hassanzadeh with their MEI Young Person's Awards for 2019 and 2020 respectively. Hopefully this year we might get that opportunity.

But in the meantime it is time to start thinking of who you might like to nominate for the 2021 Award, for outstanding contribution to minerals engineering by a young person in 2021.

Nominations, for persons under 35 years of age at December 31st 2021, should be submitted by email to bwills@min-eng.com by Friday March 4th. Nominations should include the name, age and affiliation of the nominee, and reasons for the nomination. The recipient will receive an engraved award and a complimentary registration to any future MEI Conference, and the presentation will be made whenever a mutually convenient situation arises.

MEI Award winners 2011-2020

@barrywills

December update: In the Bleak Midwinter

A bleak month with the omicron variant of the coronavirus circulating rapidly around the world, leading to further travel restrictions and cancellation of many organised Christmas parties.  

Matt, The Telegraph, December 8th

Dominating the news in the first week of the month was the revelation that a party had been held in 10 Downing Street in December of 2020 when London was in lockdown and such mixing was illegal. As usual the Prime Minister and his weasels tried to lie their way out of this, saying that no rules were broken, but the discovery of a recorded mock interview with the Government Press Secretary, made only a few days after the alleged event, showed without doubt that the party had taken place. The public outcry, particularly from those who had abided by the rules and missed out on seeing family, many of whom were dying alone of covid in hospitals, was intense and Johnson faced a torrid Prime Minister's Questions the following day. Later in the day he convened a press conference to announce that due to increasing infections from the omicron strain, Plan B would be instigated in England, cynics suggesting that this might be a diversionary tactic to hide the Christmas party news. Surely not!

Plan B involves wider rules on mask wearing, imploring people to work from home, and the introduction of covid passports for access to nightclubs and other large gatherings. People were urged to get their booster jabs as there is little doubt that vaccination is the key to controlling this pandemic. Early in the month it was reported that more than 90% of covid sufferers in the UK requiring the most specialist care were unvaccinated and three quarters of those in intensive care beds had not been jabbed.  In Austria compulsory vaccinations start next month and Germany may follow in early spring. The UK government policy is merely to encourage people to get jabbed, but with about 10% of adults still refusing to be vaccinated, this clearly isn’t enough. 

Vaccine passports are controversial as many consider this as an infringement of human rights. The unjabbed will sacrifice their rights to access mass events, and maybe later some shops and hospitality venues, but this will allow free choice and really is little different from requiring people to have a license to drive, or to show proof of certain required vaccinations, such as yellow fever, before travelling. Our friends in Canada say that vaccine passports in that country have been very well accepted.

The UK Government advice on guidelines has been confusing to say the least. On the 15th of the month the Red List of Southern African countries, to which travel was not permitted, was scrapped, despite covid infections reaching a record level on that day, and omicron spreading at an alarming rate. 

This time last year the UK was about to go into another full lockdown, with the infection rate in England being 580 in 100, 000. Last Monday, with the rate at 1040 in 100,000 Health Secretary Sajid Javid decided not to impose any further restrictions on Plan B, further curbs being under close review. This has led to concern about the impact on hospitals and schools, as already many staff are having to self-isolate. 

Although omicron is very contagious, infections seem to be less severe than with delta, data showing very low numbers of vaccinated people in intensive care. The number of coronavirus cases in hospital in England is less than half of what it was this time last year, despite there being three times as many cases. However some scientific advisors are concerned that the Government may be taking an overly optimistic approach, particularly as the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all introduced further restrictions last week. 

We look forward to 2022 with some trepidation.  Best wishes to you all!

@barrywills