Monday at Comminution '23

MEI's Jon Wills opened the conference this morning, welcoming the 210+ delegates from 25 countries, and thanking the sponsors for their support throughout the Covid years.

It is great to be back in the wonderful Vineyard Hotel conference centre, with its amazing backdrop of Table Mountain, after an absence of 3 and a half years since Flotation '19 and a full 5 years since Comminution '18. Everyone seems keen to get back to social interaction after a number of years of online events.

Malcolm Powell of the University of Queensland and Liner Design Services, Australia, got the conference off to a fine start with a keynote lecture, but I will leave the details of this and all the other technical presentations to my final report, which I hope to have on the blog in early May. My daily updates will basically be about people and the social activities associated with the four day conference.

The Vineyard has had a complete change of staff since our 2019 visit but the standard of service is proving just as perfect as ever, and we can rest easy knowing that we will be in safe hands for Flotation '23 in November.

There are many new faces at the event but some very familiar ones too. Mike Battersby is a regular at the flotation series as well as comminution and his Welsh company Maelgwyn Mineral Services is a sponsor of both series. Recently MMS opened laboratories in Johannesburg, and the Care Engineer Tyron Killian is attending his first MEI Conference.

Mike Battersby (right) with Tyron and his wife Natasha

I met up with Chris Martin at the SME meeting in Denver a few weeks' ago. His company, RSG Inc of USA, manufactures dry ultrafine grinding machines, and he was talking to two representatives from Huyser Industries, South Africa, Tinus Potgieter and Heinrich Huyser, both new to MEI events. Huyser Industries is developing the Komodo Vertical Stirred Mill for ultrafine wet grinding.

Tinus, Heinrich and Chris in the RSG booth

The long coffee and lunch breaks gave everyone the chance to enjoy the fine food on offer, and to mingle with the exhibitors and view the poster displays.

After a long day of 16 presentations it was nice to end the day with a few glasses of wine at the first of the evening sundowners in the beautiful hotel gardens.