IMPC Asia Pacific 2022: Conference Diary

The IMPC Asia Pacific Conference was held in Melbourne, Australia from 22-24 August. The conference was organised by the AusIMM, with co-hosts CSIRO and the International Mineral Processing Council. Due to Covid the planned IMPC 2022 was cancelled last year, and this regional event put in its place.

It was a hybrid conference, so delegates had the option of attending personally or presenting and viewing presentations online.  The IMPC committee asked for submissions from the global community, which focused on industry challenges, future operations, and advances in mineral processing. This enabled attendees to benefit from 160 technical papers and nine keynote speakers in a technical program showcasing the latest innovations and thinking in mineral processing. The conference was attended by 460 delegates from 20 countries, with 277 opting to attend face to face, the remainder online.

As I had been invited to present a keynote lecture, I opted to attend the conference in person and my aim was to meet as many old friends and colleagues as possible and to make new contacts. As the presentations were arranged in three parallel sessions each day it would be impossible to report fairly on these, so I opted to attend all nine  keynotes in the plenary sessions, and what follows is my personal diary of my three days at the conference.  

Monday 22 August

Following the welcoming remarks from the IMPC and the AusIMM, the first two of the three keynotes were presented online. Ian Macfarlane, Chief Executive of the Queensland Resources Council, discussed the quest for zero carbon and that those in power must be educated in the important role that mining has  in providing the critical minerals needed for this transition. Ironically last Monday 's blog posting suggested that politicians, at least in the UK, are waking up to this fact at last.

In the second keynote Dr. Silvia Franca, Director of CETEM, Brazil, looked at the challenges facing the mining industry in South America. Water conservation is of prime importance and Chile is a pioneer in the use of sea water, 25% of the water used on the mines being from the sea, and 75% of all water is recirculated.

Efficient dewatering is also of prime importance and efficient filter pressing can obviate the need for tailings dams, the dry tailings being dry stacked or used for backfill. Latin American mines are also switching to renewable energy, which is important for ESG and the move to a sustainable  future.

Andrew Jenkin, Research Programme Director at CSIRO, also stressed the importance of ESG when discussing innovation in the minerals industry.

Due to the talks over-running the coffee break was fairly short before the three parallel sessions on Physicochemical Separation, Comminution and Geometallurgy, and these were followed by lunch in the exhibition area, which gave me the opportunity to catch up with some familiar faces and meet new ones.

Delegates from Indian Institute of Technology
Photo: AusIMM

At the booth of Flotation '23 sponsor FLSmidth

It's always good to catch up with Graeme Jameson and Kevin Galvin of Australia's University of Newcastle, a breeding ground for innovation in mineral processing. Kevin's latest innovation, the Reflux Flotation Cell is being manufactured by FLSmidth. Graeme and Kevin are pictured below with Peipei Wang, also of University of Newcastle, and collaborative researchers Seher Ata of University of Sydney and Yesinia Moreno of Newcrest Mining.

And always a pleasure to catch up with my old CSM students Ted and Claire Bearman of Bear Rock Solutions.

A long standing, and current member of the Minerals Engineering editorial board is Juan Yianatos of Santa Maria University, Chile, seen below with Diana Drinkwater, representing Flotation '23 sponsor Metcelerate. After a chat with Diana, she has agreed to present a keynote at Flotation '23 on the role of Metcelerate in training mining personnel.

It was also nice to talk to the team from Mintek, South Africa, Taswald Moodley, Mehdi Safari and Sandile Nkwanyana.

Following the afternoon parallel sessions there was a belated welcome reception. A great opportunity for that long awaited ritual of social interaction, or networking. There was a very big delegation from the JKMRC, pictured below:

Photo: Mohsen Yahyaei

I had not seen Jannie van Deventer, founder of Zeobond, for several years. He was perhaps the longest standing member of the Minerals Engineering editorial board. It was also good to meet his wife Helen. Jannie is a global pioneer in geopolymerisation and the vision of his company is to provide a practical and realistic solution to creating a sustainable alternative to the manufacture of cement, one of the world's most polluting activities. I'm hoping we will see him at next year's Sustainable Minerals '23 in Falmouth.

It was also great to have a long chat with Janine Herzig, the relatively new Executive President and Director of MEI's long standing industry advocate, CEEC. Janine and I are pictured below with Ralph Holmes, of CSIRO, Chairman of the IMPC and the conference co-chair.

A very pleasant way to end a long day.

Tuesday 23 August

The first of the three keynotes this morning was given by Prof. Michael Hitch of WASM-Curtin University, and he talked about the quest for a circular economy, highlighting the difficulties in recycling.

Greg Lane, of Ausenco, then gave his views on future mineral processing plants, and this was followed by the final keynote of the morning from Dr. Kathy Ehrig the Superintendent of Geometallurgy at BHP, who showed that rock type controls throughput, and mineralogy controls metallurgy. Geologists need to understand how their deposit mineralogy impacts on final products and waste streams.

Graeme Jameson's NovaCell™ is said to be a breakthrough in flotation equipment technology, providing efficient coarse and fine particle flotation in one device. It is manufactured by Jord International and I called in at their booth to talk to Graeme and the Jord team about their possible involvement in Flotation '23 next year.

Photo: Mohsen Yahyaei

The CEEC 2021 Awards followed the days technical sessions. The medal for technical research was awarded to the authors of the paper Double Wheel Breakage Test. This was presented at Comminution '21 by Marcos Bueno and was published in Minerals Engineering, Volume 168, July 2021. The authors collaborated from across the world, comprising Finland’s Marcos Bueno of Geopyörä, the University of Oulu’s Janne Torvela, and Toni Liedes and Tábatha Chávez Matus of Oulu Mining School; Rajiv Chandramohan from Ausenco, Canada and Malcolm Powell of Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Australia. The winning paper shares the development of a prototype breakage testing device, Geopyörä, and shows breakage calibration results that indicate its potential to improve geometallurgical ore testing. 

The medal for operations was awarded to Ben Wraith, Justin Resta, Johan Welmans from Bluestone Mines Tasmania Joint Venture, Australia for their paper Recent improvements in ore sorting at the Renison Tin Concentrator - target 1 Mt/a. This was presented at the AusIMM Mill Operators' Conference in Brisbane, Australia in June 2021.

Renison is the largest tin producer in Australia, and the paper documents how the site overcame challenging conditions and increased processing rates by upgrading its ore through XRT Ore Sorting and other Mine to Mill and Geo-metallurgy practices.

Janie Herzig of CEEC with medal winners Malcolm Powell, Ben Wraith and Justin Resta

The day then ended with another enjoyable networking session, a chance to relax and talk informally with people.

IMPC members Guven Onal (Turkey), Rod Elvish (Australia), outgoing chairman Cyril O'Connor (South Africa) and new chairman Ralph Holmes of Australia

Later I saw Guven Onal with some of the delegation from Turkey:

It was also nice to see more overseas participants, including representatives from South Africa.

Some of the University of Cape Town participants

Australian company Gekko, set up originally by Sandy and Elizabeth Lewis Gray, has been a great success story, and now has a large team. Below I am with some of that team, Austell Lanyon, Mxolisi Ntombela, Theo Dzingai and Ben Wraith.

Wednesday 24 August

My keynote on the birth and evolution of Minerals Engineering journal was one of the three keynotes in the final plenary session and was sandwiched between two others. This is a good opportunity for me to thank the IMPC and the AusIMM for inviting me to Melbourne as the honorary guest speaker. I am honoured by this and it is greatly appreciated.

Australia's Chief Scientist, Dr. Cathy Foley, was this morning's first keynote speaker, and she detailed, in an Australian context, the role of critical minerals in achieving net zero, saying that global growth in demand for critical minerals over the next decade is staggering, something I have emphasised many times on the blog.

Following my presentation, the last keynote of the conference was given  by Ingrid Oyarzun Olave, of BHP, who discussed the need for re-thinking tailings and water technology strategies. This was a stimulating talk which generated a number of questions, from the audience and from online delegates. 

During the lunch break I called at the Metso Outotec booth. The company is a regular sponsor of MEI conferences and will be involved with next year's Comminution '23 and Flotation '23. They are manufacturers of another of Graeme Jameson's many inventions, the Concorde Cell, a model of which was on display. The Concorde cell is  a high intensity pneumatic flotation cell which is designed to recover fine and ultra-fine particles, minimising operating costs and energy and water consumption. The team is shown below, with the model of the cell in the centre.

Finally I managed to get the team from CSIRO together, to congratulate them on the co-organisation of a very successful conference.

The last full IMPC conference was held in Moscow in 2018. The Cape Town IMPC scheduled for 2020 was postponed to  2021 due to the pandemic, and again to 2026 as the pandemic raged on. Melbourne was the the original scheduled venue for 2022 and this was cancelled due to the severe lockdowns in Australia. The IMPC, AusIMM and CSIRO then took a big gamble in organising IMPC Asia Pacific 2022 within eight months, so they must be highly commended for a successful conference, bringing mineral processors together after this long lay off. Everyone agreed that it was a great pleasure to be able to talk to people again face to face rather than via a computer screen, and to relax at the end of the day and enjoy a few drinks with  colleagues.

Rrelaxing after the conference with Graeme Jameson, Lachlan Bartsch,
Martin Rudolph and Ron Goodman

The IMPC has now rewarded Melbourne with a full Congress in 2028, but before that the next IMP Congress will be in Washington in 2024, organised by SME. 

@barrywills

Mining, the worlds's most important industry- is the message getting through at last?

 I'm looking forward to the IMPC Asia Pacific '22 conference which starts today in Melbourne. We in the minerals industry are aware that mining is the world's most important industry, and that mineral processing is the most important technology, and this is reflected in some of the keynotes this week, highlighting the challenges that lie ahead and the role of critical minerals in the quest to achieve net zero carbon.

"If it can't be grown in must be mined" has been the message thrown at the media and politicians over the years, usually falling on completely deaf ears.

But now a glimmer of hope- it would appear that indeed the message is now getting through to politicians. In July the UK released its very first Critical Minerals Strategy and Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said:

"Almost every part of modern daily life relies on minerals, often mined thousands of miles away. From our cars to mobile phones, wind turbines to medical devices, modern society is quite literally built on rocks. As technology evolves faster than ever, we become more and more reliant on a new cohort of minerals. We are moving to a world powered by critical minerals: we need lithium, cobalt and graphite to make batteries for electric cars; silicon and tin for our electronics; rare earth elements for electric cars and wind turbines."

Basically what we have been saying for years, but it is nice to hear it now from the mouth of a prominent government minister!

@barrywills

A good start to my week in Melbourne

I arrived in a cool and wet Melbourne on Thursday evening after a seamless 21 hour flight via Kuala Lumpur via the excellent Malaysian Airlines. 

Travelling light helped, hand baggage only, to avoid the baggage chaos at Heathrow.

Thursday morning dawned bright and clear and I strolled along the bank of the Yarra River to the Melbourne Cricket Ground, one of the world's most famous and impressive Test Match venues.

The highlight of my first two days was a superb dinner last night at the Members Dining Room of the RAFV, the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria, City Club. I was the guest of Prof. John Ralston and his wife Ann. John served over 20 years on the Editorial Board of Minerals Engineering. 

John and Ann were born and raised in Melbourne and John talked very fondly of the late Olivia Newton-John, who attended the same school. The Ralstons moved back to their home city 6 months ago, after nearly 40 years in Adelaide.

John was initially Professor of Chemical Technology at the University of South Australia in Adelaide and in 1994 became the first Director of the Ian Wark Research Institute ('The Wark'), serving for 18 years. He is still.active in his field, and among his many interests he mentors students in China and Canada.

It was really good to talk to John and Ann last night and to be able to meet and congratulate the manager and chef of the restaurant, Hafez Shakira and Jelena Grujovic, which recently received the enormous accolade of the award of the top restaurant in Melbourne.  Praise indeed as this cosmopolitan city is internationally renowned for its fine dining.

A great start to the week. It's hard to believe that I will be on a plane again in 4 days time!

Hoping to see you at IMPC Asia-Pacific '22

Tomorrow I start the long journey from Falmouth to Heathrow and then on to Melbourne, Australia, for the IMPC Asia-Pacific '22 conference, where I will be presenting a keynote lecture on the birth and evolution of Minerals Engineering journal.

It will be my first face to face mineral processing conference in nearly 3 years, so I am greatly looking forward to making new contacts, and catching up with old friends who I have not seen for some time. I will be posting a short report on the event when I return, so if you will be there and have any news that you think may be of general interest, please do contact me. 

@barrywills     bwills@min-eng.com

#IMPC2022

Fernando Concha: 1937-2022

Sad news from Chile of the death of Prof. Fernando Concha, former director of the Center for Water Resources for Agriculture and Mining (CRHIAM) and Professor Emeritus of the University of Concepción.

Prof. Concha served as director of the Center between 2013 and 2018. He began his academic career in the then Department of Extractive Metallurgical Engineering in 1960, two years after obtaining the title of Chemical Civil Engineer from the University of Concepción. In 2016 he was awarded the honorary title of Professor Emeritus, the highest academic recognition of the university.

I met Prof. Concha only once, when he attended Solid-Liquid Separation '02 in Falmouth, and twelve years later he authored a book on Solid-Liquid Separation in the Minerals Industry. 

Prof. Concha (left) at Solid-Liquid Separation '02 in Falmouth

In 1998 he was awarded the prestigious Antoine Gaudin Award by the SME, for his work on hydrocyclones, and he played a part in the careers of two other Gaudin Award Winners, who I interviewed for MEI, Prof. Janusz Laskowski and Dr. Osvaldo Bascur.

We offer our condolences to Fernando's family, and invite those who knew him to leave your memories on this posting.

Flotation '23: first call for abstracts

Flotation has always been MEI's biggest conference. The 9th in the series, Flotation '19, was our last face to face event before the pandemic, and it was attended by 293 delegates from 33 countries. Flotation '21 was totally online and attracted 273 delegates over its 5 days.

We are now eagerly looking forward to being back in Cape Town next year for Flotation '23 at the beautiful Vineyard Hotel in the leafy suburb of Claremont, with the stunning view of Table Mountain.

The opening session at Flotation '19

Already the conference has attracted a large number of sponsors, including the latest, Metcelerate, a welcome new addition to the MEI fold.

Current Flotation '23 sponsors

As always there will be an associated exhibition, where delegates can mingle with the exhibitors during the coffee and lunch breaks and the welcome wine reception. If you would like to exhibit, you are advised to reserve booth space as early as possible, as space is already being snapped up.

Morning coffee break at the exhibition at Flotation '19

Networking has always been an important feature of MEI Conferences, and, as always, we will have long coffee and lunch breaks, evening sundowners, and an informal conference dinner at a nearby location.

Sundowner in the Vineyard gardens

There is now a first call for abstracts. If you would like to present a paper at the conference, please submit your abstract via the conference website by May 31st 2023. All presenters will be invited to submit papers for peer-review after the conference. These will be refereed, and, if accepted, published immediately in the first available regular issue of Minerals Engineering, and included in the Virtual Special Issue of the conference on ScienceDirect.

We look forward to seeing you in Cape Town next year.

#Flotation23

New book: Hydrometallurgy: 2nd edition

This revised, new edition, by Michael L. Free, of the University of Utah, USA,  retains its class-tested coverage of how metals behave in water while updating and expanding information about metals processing methods. The book further retains its emphasis on predicting and engineering the way metals are extracted from ore sources, separated from unwanted entities, recovered as metals, and purified using water based processing. 

The transformation of minerals to metals requires hydrometallurgical processing for nearly all of the nonferrous metals we use. This book elucidates the associated fundamentals and processing applications as well as related tools to assess processes and performance. The new edition further includes additional photographs, updated drawings, supplementary data, updated descriptive information, and new detail on rare earth elements processing as well as recycling and byproduct recovery of metals.

July update- political turmoil; Covid infections rise; and the Lionesses roar

 The 7th July brought to an end three of the most tumultuous days in the history of British politics, with the resignation of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party. Following yet another bout of lies due to another Tory sleaze scandal, two of the Government's most senior ministers, the Chancellor and the Health Secretary, resigned within minutes of each other. The following day saw a flurry of resignations with nearly 60 Tory MPs quitting the government at senior and junior levels, but after clinging on like a leech it was obvious that Johnson's position was untenable and on Thursday July 7th he formally announced his resignation as party leader, while insisting he remain as Prime Minister until his successor has been appointed, within the next couple of months. His resignation brings to an end three years of probably the most divisive and controversial eras in British politics. 

Covid infections were rising again across the UK at the beginning of the month, an estimated 1 in 20 people in England having the virus by mid-month, rising to 1 in 17 by the end of the month, driven by two new fast-spreading sub-variants of Omicron. Cornwall's infection rate soared above the national average, and there was an unusually high number of cases in Falmouth, probably due to the crowds pouring in for the annual Sea Shanty Festival in mid-June.

A packed Chain Locker for the Sea Shanty Festival on June 18th 

A heatwave in the middle of the month, with devastating fires and a record high UK temperature of 40.3C, also brought tourists flocking into Cornwall and its beaches.

Falmouth's Gyllyngvase beach

Also in the middle of the month we held what we hope will be our last online conference, before going back to face to face events for Process Mineralogy '22 in Sitges in November. Sustainable Minerals '22 was a very low-key event compared with the same online event a year ago, suggesting that people are becoming tired of meeting on-screen and are yearning for the social interaction of conventional pre-pandemic events. It's hard to build relationships using Zoom and other online platforms, but it is now a feature of our lives after Jon's recent move to Luxembourg.

Granddaughter Josephine 'Zooming' from Luxembourg

Jon, Kathryn and family missed our big event of the year, Amanda's 50th birthday.

Another major event for me in July was the hand-over of my position as Editor-in-Chief of Minerals Engineering to my admirable successor Dr. Pablo Brito-Parada. I have been with the journal for 35 years, since I established it in 1987, and I am honoured to have been invited to Melbourne in a couple of week's time to present a keynote lecture on my time with Minerals Engineering at the IMPC Asia-Pacific conference. I am really looking forward to catching up with old friends after this long lay-off.

And finally something to cheer about at last in England. Four and a half hours ago the "Lionesses", the English team, beat Germany 2-1 in the final of  the Women's  UEFA Euro 2022 championship. The standard of football throughout the tournament has been exceptional and the team can feel immensely proud of their performance, the first time an English team has won a major football tournament since 1966 when the men's team beat Germany in the World Cup final.

Source: insidesport

@barrywills