2024 SME Annual Meeting, Phoenix: Conference Diary

Four years ago I was in Phoenix for the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) Annual Meeting and I narrowly escaped just before the world went into lockdown.

Downtown Phoenix

Last month I was back again for my 4th visit to Arizona's capital city for MINEXCHANGE 2024 SME Annual Conference and Expo. This was my 21st SME Annual Meeting and as always I spent most of my time in the giant exhibition area, looking out for mineral processors and to catch up with their news.  So what follows is my diary of my daily wanderings and I invite all who attended to leave their impressions of the meeting in the comments section.

Sunday February 25th

The exhibition opened, as always, in the late afternoon and this is normally a good time to catch up with the exhibitors, who are usually at their most alert!

So I began my search for mineral processors and the first familiar face was that of Sam Palaniandy, General Manager at Nippon Eirich, Australia, with Eirich USA product specialist Tyler Rhea. Sam is a regular at MEI's comminution conferences and will be in Cape Town in June for Mill Circuits '24. International company Eirich Machines Inc offers a range of mills and supplementary units, including the Tower Mill, for the very fine grinding of soft to very hard materials. 

Sam and Tyler

Moving on I saw Paul Gallagher. Technical Manager with Roytec Global, Canada, with Business Director Peter Sampson and Alexei Krassnokutski, who consults with Roytec on behalf of Krassno, South Africa. 

Alexei, Paul and Peter

Roytec Global, who sponsored an MEI conference for the first time at Flotation '23, is a business partner of the Beijing General Research Institute for Mining & Metallurgy (BGRIMM) Technology Group, China, and offers a full suite of filtration, thickening and flotation technologies with manufacturing capabilities both in South Africa and China. We look forward to a presentation from Roytech at Physical Separation '24, dealing with thickening.

It was a pleasant surprise to catch up with Jan Cilliers, of Imperial College, UK and Diana Drinkwater, Principal Consultant at Mineralis, Australia. who were with Pam Hofmann, of the University of Utah. Pam is the daughter of Utah's eminent Prof. Jan Miller.

With Jan, Pam and Diana

Jan Cilliers is CFO and Diana is CEO of Metcelerate, which provides training solutions to build technical competence in the mineral processing workplace for metallurgists and engineers. Metcelerate sponsored Flotation '23, at which Diana gave a keynote address, speaking of how organisations need to manage their people like any other asset, to ensure best possible condition, use, and performance. Metcelerate won the annual IChemE 2022 Global Award for Business Start-Up companies. In accepting the award Jan Cilliers said "we are very proud and humbled to have been acknowledged in this way by an esteemed organisation such as IChemE. We started Metcelerate to assist mining companies to close the skills gap in mineral processing, one of the most important elements of mining profitability. Our experience, backed by published data, tells us that this is a serious gap for mining companies. Graduates from our program have skills and ability to produce better results, and this is supported by feedback from learners and their supervisors".

In the nearby Geopyörä booth, Robert Seitz, Chief Technical Officer with Metcelerate was talking to Marcos de Paiva Bueno, the CEO and Founder of Geopyörä Oy, Finland. His company offers state-of-the-art rock breakage characterisation technology which allows mining companies to rapidly test several samples at low cost and generate a large amount of high quality data, which can be used to better assess the ore hardness variability, reduce risks and add value to projects.

Marcos and Robert

Finally, on leaving the exhibit hall I was extremely pleased to see my old friend Guven Onal, of Istanbul Techical University, Turkey, a regular at the SME Annual Meetings. Now 84 years old he tells me that he has no intention of retiring but he was accompanied this year by a chaperone, his son Seckin Sahap Onal.

Monday February 26th

A provocative keynote
handout

The sessions got underway this morning with a controversial keynote session on why net zero by 2030 is unlikely to happen, something I have agreed on many times on the blog, and why fossil fuels such as coal are going to be needed for many years yet, again something that I agree on.

Energy expert Alex Epstein opened the keynote session with a presentation on the need for affordable and reliable energy in the future and perspectives on how coal and other fossil fuels can continue to provide improved energy delivery systems for developing nations. With nearly a billion people without reliable power and potable water, providing affordable, reliable energy encourages the innovation necessary to support developing countries.

Epstein argued that fossil fuels have fostered global human flourishing and pulled millions of people out of poverty. Factoring in an estimated coal reserve of approximately 250 billion tonnes in the United States, roughly 23% of the world reserve, these minerals continue to have an impact on the global energy mix.

Alex Epstein is a philosopher and energy expert who argues that "human flourishing" should be the guiding principle of energy and environmental progress. Global human flourishing requires more oil, coal, and natural gas, not less, according to Epstein. 

The exhibition opened at 11am this morning, and judging by the huge crowd waiting to enter and the long line of people waiting to register the exhibition might start to buzz today.

And so it did!  My first call was to see the team from International Mining, the world's number one mining trade journal, and MEI media partner.

Phil Playle, Paul Moore and Daniel Gleeson of International Mining

I then dropped by the Eriez booth to congratulate Jaisen Kohmuench for starting a new position as Chief Executive Officer at Eriez. The Eriez Flotation Division is a regular sponsor of MEI's flotation conferences and is already signed up for Flotation '25. I talked to Mike Mankosa, Executive Vice President, Global Technology, the recipient of the SME's Richards Award in 2021, about the future of research and development at Eriez and particular of their involvement with Cardiff University in the UK.

Historically, Eriez has made substantial investments in new products and technologies.  While most of this work has been internally funded, Eriez has worked with third-party sponsors in areas such as flotation, eddy current separation, coal beneficiation, and metal detection technologies.    

Over the years Eriez has also collaborated with numerous academic research institutions, and association with leading academic institutions has provided access to sophisticated research tools and world-class researchers.  Additionally this gains access to developing professional talent for future recruiting needs. 

Mike said that Eriez corporate R&D is expanding globally.  While activity has traditionally been based in the US, over the last several years the footprint has expanded to include additional resources in China. And most recently, Eriez has taken university collaboration one step further by establishing a European-based R&D branch embedded directly into the Cardiff University research park, co-locating at the university accelerating ongoing research activities in magnetics and metal detection.   

Eriez’s history of working with Cardiff University began when Eriez joined the advisory board for the university’s Magnetic Materials & Applications Research Centre. The relationship progressed into a successful Engineering and Knowledge Transfer Partnership initiative funded by the Welsh government from 2019 to 2022. The result of this effort is the soon-to-be-released digital MetAlarm metal detector.  Eriez continues its partnership with Cardiff University collaborating on an artificial intelligence feasibility study supported by the Innovate UK program.

With the Eriez team, Jose Marin,Jaisen Kohmuench, Mike Mankosa, Maoming Fan,
Brandon Kocher and Steve Ciacchini

Leaving Eriez I caught sight of Erik Spiller, Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines, and I called in at the booth to talk to some of the CSM students and to Hugh Miller, Associate Professor in Mining Engineering.

Erik Spiller (centre) and Hugh Miller (right) with CSM students

During a conference last summer in Halifax, Nova Scotia for US and Canadian universities, a meeting was held with academics who are interested in partnering with the Colorado School of Mines to revitalise interests at the undergraduate level and provide incentives. From this Colorado School of Mines recently entered a partnership with the University of Saskatchewan and is holding meetings with the provincial government about potentially establishing a Saskatchewan School of Mines.

Moving on I stopped to say hello to Natska Ericson and Philip Thompson of FLSmidth, Midvale, Utah.

Ali Entezari-Zarandi stopped to introduce himself. Ali is a project metallurgist at Hecla Quebec- Casa Berardi Gold mine, Canada. His expertise is in hydrometallurgical treatment of ores and wastes using conventional solvents as well as the new generation of ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents.

Cytec was a former sponsor of MEI's flotation conferences until it was acquired by Solvay in 2015, who continued the involvement with MEI.  A couple of months ago Solvay announced the new names of the future independent publicly traded companies resulting from its separation into two industry leaders: Solvay and Syensqo. We hope to continue our long standing involvement with the new branch, Syensqo Mining Solutions,  which provides reagent solutions to the mining industry. As in the past there was a big team at the event, promoting the launch of its Transfoamer product line, the first groundbreaking frother innovation in more than 65 years. 

Well suited for coarse particle recovery, Transfoamer frothers are based on a novel technology that changes froth strength in response to pH, leading to more efficient copper recovery from even the most challenging ores, a critical need as copper demand grows in response to electrification and the energy transition.

Transfoamer frothers start as strong and robust frothers in the rougher circuit. Then, in response to pH, they "switch" to weaker frothers in the cleaner circuit, where less froth is needed. This unique property is particularly attractive for use in bulk copper and molybdenum flotation.

Syensqo’s Transfoamer technology is already in use commercially in Latin America, where its ability to promote fast kinetics and mobility of value minerals has resulted in improvements to throughput, recovery and energy consumption. No doubt we will hear much more of this at Flotation '25.

The Syensqo team

Although there are very many mineral processing papers being presented at the conference it is impossible to report on them all, as they are contained in a bewildering array of parallel sessions and the only Mineral Processing Division (MPD) Plenary session contained, as always, lectures from three of the MPD Award Winners.

A well attended MPD plenary session

The Antoine M. Gaudin Award is for scientific or engineering contributions that further understanding of the technology of mineral processing and I was extremely pleased to see this awarded to Peter Amelunxen of Capstone Copper, Canada, the first winner of the MEI Young Person's Award in 2011. In his lecture "Unlocking Efficiency: Advances in Flotation Circuit Design and Optimization" Peter reviewed how uncertainties can introduce error, risk, and cost in flotation circuit design and he discussed some of the recent developments in addressing these shortcomings, and how they are being used to improve the efficiency of modern flotation circuits. 

Peter with his proud father, Roger

The Robert H. Richards Award recognises achievement in any form which unmistakably furthers the art of mineral beneficiation in any of its branches. The winner of this award was Richard Johnson, of Johnson Mining Consulting Services, USA, In his lecture "Froth Flotation Then and Now" he discussed the ongoing shift back to smaller, more efficient cells and how we got there.

The Milton E. Wadsworth Metallurgy Award recognises distinguished contributions that advance our understanding of the science and technology of non-ferrous chemical metallurgy. In his award lecture Gus Van Weert, President of Oretome Ltd, Canada, discussed how the automotive starter battery industry provides a good example of what is going to happen to most industrial metals: near complete recycling! With only residual domestic mining, U.S. steelmakers already operate with 50% steel scrap. Concrete waste and bricks are attracting attention as cement replacement and he asked what can mineral processing learn from the lead batteries?

Peter, Gus and Richard with their prestigious awards

The end of the plenaries was the end of the day for me, and I relaxed with a beer and a Cornish pasty with Gaurav Soni and Himesh Patel, metallurgists with FLSmidth (posting of 27th February).

With Gauray and Himesh

 Tuesday February 27th

While waiting for the border guards to allow us into the exhibition hall I had a chat with Xuming Wang and Srinivas Veeramasuneni. Srinivas is Chief Technology Officer with USG Corporation in Chicago and Xuming is a research professor at the University of Utah, a close colleague of Prof. Jan Miller.

Eleven years ago Xuming and Prof. Miller were involved in a serious road accident in Tibet (posting of 13 July 2013). Thankfully they both recovered well from their injuries, Prof. Miller's being the more severe.

The giant FLSmidth booth dominates the entry to the exhibits, as always. A Danish multinational technology company based in Copenhagen it provides the global mining and cement industries with equipment and services. Its MissionZero programme has set a target of providing solutions for zero-emission mining and zero-emission cement production by 2030, supporting a green transition built upon sustainable materials. 

FLSmidth has around 11,000 employees worldwide, and about 30 are represented at the meeting. MEI and FLSmidth have always had a special relationship, the company being regular sponsors of the comminution and flotation series, and this year of our new conference Mill Circuits '24 in June. 

Unusually this year Dariusz Lelinski, the Global Director for Flotation at FLSmidth, USA, was not at the SME meeting. He will be presenting the keynote lecture at Mill Circuits '24, exploring how different flotation technologies can improve both productivity and sustainability performance and will be chairing a panel discussion on the evolution of mill circuits.

In the picture below FLSmidth's Peter Wulff, Himesh Patel and Paul Ormsbee display models of three of the company's products, the Wemco II mechanical flotation machine, the Tower Mill and the Reflux Classifier.

I took the opportunity of congratulating the company on winning the Mining Magazine Award 2024 for Technology and Innovation for the Reflux Concentrating Classifier (RCC) and HPGR Pro grinding machine, which have both received accolades for their groundbreaking features and contributions to operational efficiencies and sustainability. The RCC offers improved performance compared to traditional methods and has shown promising results in lab-scale trials, suggesting its potential for processing low-grade ores and tailings. There will be presentations on the RCC at Physical Separation '24 and Mill Circuits '24 in June.

The Mining Magazine’s Mineral Processing Award went to Vale and Weir Minerals for the innovative use of Weir's Cavex® 2 CVD hydrocyclone in iron ore desliming in a pioneering test at Vale’s Vargem Grande 2 Plant in Brazil. The team conducted an industrial trial to compare the incumbent first-generation Cavex® CVX hydrocyclones with the new Cavex® 2 CVD hydrocyclones, which saw their process optimised, needing fewer operating CVD cyclones and achieving a 9 percentage point gain in mass recovery, increasing it to 56%. Weir Minerals is a sponsor of next year's Comminution '25 in Cape Town.

It is a while since I last saw Tom Strombotne, of TS & A Consulting Services and a Minerals Product Application Specialist to Thermo Fisher Scientific and it was good to talk to him about Thermo Fisher resuming their future involvement with MEI Conferences. They sponsored Process Mineralogy '18 in Cape Town and today they confirmed a booth at Process Mineralogy '24, also in Cape Town.

Tom Strombotne (second left) with Thermo Fisher colleagues

Moving on it was good to have my annual chat with Rob McIvor and Omar Arafat of Metcom Technologies Inc, who continue to provide the industry with certified training in grinding circuit optimisation.

I almost missed the Derrick Corporation booth as there is normally a large screen deck on display, but it was good to stop by and talk about their potential involvement with Comminution '25 next year. Derrick is a family-owned and operated company offering pioneering screening technology.

After a mid-afternoon meal at nearby Seamus McCaffrey's Irish Pub I had a brief rest before heading off to the Hyatt Regency for the SME's annual international reception, attended by non-USA participants.

With Jan Cilliers (UK), Daniel Gleeson (UK), Kriss Waters (Canada),
Diana Drinkwater (Australia) and Katja Freitag (Canada)

Wednesday February 28th

I spent some time this morning talking to Mineral Processing Division students who had posters on display.

Doing the same thing was Prof. Roe-Hoan Yoon, a University Distinguished Professor in the Virginia Tech Department of Mining and Minerals Engineering and director of the Center of Advanced Separation Technologies who last year was made a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He was with his former PhD student Wei Liu, who is now at the University of Utah, and they are collaborating on a project for the extraction of rare earths by a combination of physical and chemical methods, They hope to present something at Critical Minerals '24 in November.

With Wei Liu and Roe-Hoan Yoon

As MINEXCHANGE 2024 ended at lunchtime the exhibit hall was very quiet this morning but I was fortunate to spot and have a chat with Richard Merwin, the chairman of Eriez.

While all was quiet I looked in on the giant Metso booth, to thank the team for their ongoing sponsorship of MEI Conferences, only to find that only one of them had heard of MEI!  Not surprising as they are a huge global company with offices around the world and have had in the last few years merged with Outotec to form Metso-Outotec, after which they reverted to the old name of Metso.

Soon it was lunchtime, and I headed off to the Mineral Processing Division (MPD) luncheon, where the Master of Ceremonies was Dave Meadows, one of my students at Camborne School of Mines, graduating in Mineral Processing Technology in 1985. After 12 years in production in South Africa Dave moved to the USA and he is now Chief Technical Officer with Bechtel Mining and Metals in Phoenix.  He will be a panelist at Mill Circuits '24, discussing the future evolution of mill circuits.

As outgoing Chair of the MPD of the SME Dave received the Mill Gentleman of Distinction Award, which was presented by Ronel Kappes, Director of Processing at Newmont USA. Dave then passed the gavel on to Jaeheon Lee, Associate Professor at Colorado School of Mines, the 2024 Chair of the MPD.

With Dave and Jaeheon

Leaving the luncheon I was pleased when Angela Tita stopped me to say hello. From Cameroon, Angela is now at the University of Nevada, Reno, researching the extraction of lithium from clays.

MINEXCHANGE 2024 was not quite over, however, as all delegates were invited to the Awards Celebrations at the Sheraton Hotel in the late afternoon. Among the award winners I was pleased to be presented with the Frank F. Aplan Award (posting of 29th February).

At the awards reception it was announced that 6994 delegates had registered for MINEXCHANGE 2024, a record for Phoenix. As always it was a great event and the next one will be in Denver from February 23-26 next year. But before then the next major SME event is the International Mineral Processing Congress in Washington DC from September 29th-October 3rd this year, with its theme Mineral Processing for the Energy Transition. MEI is a proud media partner so I look forward to meeting up with mineral processors from all over the world.