May summary- summer arrives

Summer arrived in the first week of the month, a very welcome change from the awful wet and windy winter and Falmouth's beaches sprung into life.

Falmouth's Gyllyngvase beach on May 12th

Amanda was lucky to find the sun in the Isles of Scilly early in the month,for the annual world gig championships.

It is rare to see the aurora borealis in Britain, let alone down here in the far south-west, but in the second week of the month an intense Coronal Mass Ejection, a large expulsion of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona, produced a display of the Northern Lights in west Cornwall. 

The aurora at Wheal Coates, south-west Cornwall
Source: @stucornell on instagram

Not such a great month for Barbara, unfortunately, as most of it she has spent recovering from an eye operation. As the recuperation time is long she will not be in Cape Town next week for Physical Separation '24 and Mill Circuits '24.

Jon, Amanda and I have been working on these conferences during the month and the timetables are now finalised. They are looking good and it is not too late to register. Today is also the deadline for submission of abstracts for Process Mineralogy '24 and Critical Minerals '24 in November. If you have missed the deadline, don't worry; we will be preparing the provisional timetables later this month, so there is still time to submit abstracts.

And finally, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a surprise announcement on the 22nd of the month, that he had requested permission from the King to dissolve parliament and called a general election to be held on 4th July. The odds are that a change of Government is in the offing!  

Is copper THE most critical metal? It always has been

Prior to the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries the demand for metals was not very high. The small county of Cornwall in south-west England was the major producer of copper and tin in the mid 19th century, when world production of copper was about 60,000 tonnes per year. The copper ores were of very high grade and needed little upgrading, apart from simple hand sorting and crude gravity methods.

The second industrial revolution, the 'discovery' of electricity, had a profound effect on metal demand, particularly for copper. By the beginning of the 20th century the demand had increased by an order of magnitude, such that the 'easy' ores were becoming scarce and the simple sorting and gravity methods could not adequately treat the ever decreasing grades and complexity of the vast quantities of copper deposits which were available in the Americas and Australia.

A reminder of when Cornwall ruled the copper and tin mining world

The mining industry was in crisis, and so was the industrialised civilisation, although most people would not have been aware of this. The search was on for an innovative method of upgrading the low grade base metal ores, and the great saviour of the mining industry was froth flotation.

The invention of modern flotation is attributed to Francis Elmore, who patented a vacuum flotation process in 1904, which was used in the Zinc Corporation plant in Australia for 6 years, although the first recognisably "modern" flotation technique had been patented in London in 1903 by Sulman and Picard, and this used air bubbles formed by forcing compressed air through holes in the cell, but it would be years before such pneumatic cells would be commercially used. By 1908 flotation was working well for bulk flotation of zinc tailings, but the search was then on for means of treating primary sulphides, which led to the development of xanthate collectors, selective activators and depressants, and, as they say, "the rest is history". 

Just as it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the mining industry, so it is difficult to overestimate the value of froth flotation to modern society. How would we economically produce the metals and minerals that modern society cries out for without this process, which I have always referred to as the most important technological development since the discovery of smelting? Throughout the century, as the available ores became leaner and more complex, so flotation was adapted to effectively deal with them, and to this day research both into the physical and chemical aspects of flotation continues unabated as evidenced by the response already to next year's Flotation '25, which is a year and a half away.

Now we are into the 4th industrial revolution where annual copper production is around 25 million tonnes but all analysts forecast that much more will be needed to satisfy the hunger for renewable energy requirements and the production of electric vehicles. 

The International Energy Forum has assessed that the world will need to significantly increase its copper production to meet electrification goals, with a 115% increase in copper production in the next 30 years compared to what has currently been mined up to now, equivalent to  bringing 55% more new mines into production than would otherwise be needed.

The report called for immediate attention from governments and industry to work together to meet the world’s growing copper needs. The shortfall is in part because of the permitting process for mining companies. The average time between discovering a new copper mineral deposit and getting a permit to build a mine is about 20 years. 

The industry is in crisis once more but this time it is unlikely that a major breakthrough in technology will provide the answer, it mostly comes down to money. New deposits are getting harder, and costlier, to extract as ore grades fall, meaning more ore needs to be mined to secure the same amount of metal. Growing scrutiny of the environmental costs of copper mining is also discouraging more investment. 

There has been significant movement within the copper sector to increase production intensity and copper has become a major focus for the likes of Anglo American and BHP, with the two huge companies currently in the midst of an ongoing takeover tussle for Anglo’s copper stronghold. A merger would see BHP assume control of some of the world’s largest copper mines in Chile and Peru, with assets reported to be around US$35 billion.

Renewable energy technologies, clean water, wastewater, electricity cannot exist without copper, which is likely to be the key commodity in the next few decades. Solar and wind farms, often spread out over large areas, require more copper per unit of power produced than do centralised coal and gas-fired power stations. Electric vehicles use more than twice as much copper as petrol cars do.

Although more copper is being recycled, it won’t be enough to cover demand, so the only alternative is to mine more and to develop secondary processing routes, as much copper and other critical metals are tied up in the tailings dumps of many years ago. 

We will hear much of critical metals such as battery metals and rare earths at MEI's inaugural Critical Minerals '24 in November, but hopefully we will hear about copper too, which remarkably was only recently added to America's list of critical metals. The deadline for abstracts for the conference is the end of this week.

#CriticalMinerals24

Fine screening and mill relining technology: great news from two regular comminution sponsors

Derrick Corporation is a family-owned and operated company and has been a regular sponsor of MEI's comminution conferences, so it is good to welcome them back to join the other 17 sponsors already signed up for Comminution '25.

Derrick Corporation is a pioneer of wet and dry fine screening and their latest designs are commonly used now in grinding circuits as alternatives to hydrocyclones. Although the late Prof. Alban Lynch was involved with hydrocyclones for very many years, in his conversation with me he said that "the way they are used now is an absolute nonsense, with circulating loads in some cases of well above 200%. The future is high frequency screens.....it is very clear that these screens are so much better than hydrocyclones."

By classifying by size-only, screens, compared to hydrocyclones, give a sharper separation with multidensity feeds and reduce overgrinding of the dense minerals. 

Some of the Derrick team at the 2022 SME Meeting in Salt Lake City

At Comminution '16 Elizma Ford, of Mintek, South Africa, evaluated the potential throughput benefit of adopting Derrick fine screening technology and  concluded that it is becoming apparent that the ability of these machines to accurately classify by size only at efficiencies in the mid 90% range, as fine as 45 micron, has resulted in a paradigm shift in milling circuits, replacing hydrocyclones in the closing of secondary and tertiary circuits. At Comminution '18 Martyn Hay, of Eurus Mineral Consultants, South Africa, also emphasised that over the past decade there have been a number of success stories where cyclones have been replaced by wet screening resulting in improved grinding efficiency, higher throughput, lower operating work index, better liberation and increased recovery in downstream flotation. He highlighted that inefficiencies in classification account for the majority of metal loss from the milling/flotation process as well as excessive mill power draw.

And I take the opportunity here of congratulating another regular comminution conference sponsor, Australia’s Russell Mineral Equipment (RME), a global leader in the design, manufacture and supply of grinding mill relining technologies and services, who was named last month as the winner of Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers Export Award category and received a Top Ten Gold Award at the Australian Manufacturing Forum Event  held in Sydney. Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers is an annual initiative aimed at recognising excellence in manufacturing across Australia. Congratulations RME and we look forward to seeing your huge team again at Comminution '25.

The RME team at Comminution '23

#Comminution25

Prof. Komar Kawatra honoured by symposium at the SME Annual Meeting in 2025

The SME Annual Meeting is one of the mining industry's great networking events and is always more special to mineral processors when there is an associated symposium honouring a distinguished member of our profession.

I am pleased to see that at next year's event in Denver (MINEXCHANGE2025) there will be a symposium honouring Professor S. Koma Kawatra, chaired by Dr. Jayson Ripke, Dr. John Uhrie and Professor Courtney Young. Sessions will cover comminution, iron ore, phosphate and plant operations.

Dr. S. Komar Kawatra joined the faculty at Michigan Technological University as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 1977. He was promoted to Professor in 1985 and chaired the Department of Mining and Materials Processing Engineering from 2000-2002 when the Mineral Processing programme merged into Chemical Engineering. He then served as chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering from 2007 to 2017.

Prof. Kawatra was made an SME Fellow in 1992 and has been heavily-involved with SME for decades and is an accomplished researcher, mentor, teacher, and lecturer. His primary areas of research in Mineral Processing and Chemical Engineering are in instrumentation and on-line analysis for monitoring and control of chemical and particulate process plants and treatment/remediation of chemical and industrial wastes.

He has received numerous honors and awards and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Mineral Processing & Extractive Metallurgy Review Journal having served as Editor-in-Chief of the Minerals & Metallurgical Processing Journal. When I last met him at the SME Annual Meeting in Phoenix in 2020 we talked about the increasing problem in finding suitable reviewers for papers for his journal and for Minerals Engineering. The journals have groups of dedicated reviewers but many researchers are reluctant to review manuscripts, although they are the first to complain if their work is not assessed on time - everyone is so busy these days!

With Prof. Kawatra in Phoenix in 2020

Next year's meeting in Denver will be particularly attractive as it also incorporates World Gold 2025, which fosters academic exchanges, shares technical advances and promotes innovation and sustainable practices within the gold industry. As the world’s most influential gold technical conference, World Gold 2025 also serves as a platform for showcasing industry-wide scientific advancements.

So much to look forward to at MINEXCHANGE2025 and MEI is pleased to be a media partner for the first time.

May Cornish Mining Sundowner

It was a beautiful evening last night in Falmouth, perfect for those who attended this month's Cornish Mining Sundowner at the Chain Locker. It was particularly good to see so many students from Camborne School of Mines joining the regulars.

The Chain Locker has become a mecca for mining people and the next major mining event there will be on 11th June for the evening buffet and social at the annual UK Mining Conference. This looks like being another great Falmouth event, breaking even the registration record for last year's conference. Among the high profile speakers will be Mark Cutifani, former CEO of Anglo American for nine years. 

UK Mining Conference, Falmouth 2023

I am sorry that I will miss this, as I will be in Cape Town for Physical Separation '24 and Mill Circuits '24 which run at the same time as the UK event, but I will be back in time for the next sundowner, which will be on Thursday June 20th, at the Chain Locker of course.

Final Call for Abstracts for Process Mineralogy '24 and Critical Minerals '24

Just a reminder that if you would like to present papers at Process Mineralogy '24 and/or Critical Minerals '24 in Cape Town in November, the deadline for abstract submission is the end of this month.

Process Mineralogy '24 is the 7th in the series and is sponsored by Zeiss, Capstone Copper, Promet101, Conundrum, Petrolab, and AECI Mining Chemicals. with media partners International Mining and Minerals Engineering.

We currently have two keynote lectures. "Assessment of trends in cobalt mining and processing in relation to mineralogy" will be given by Quentine Dehaine, Senior Researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and "The future of geometallurgy" will be given by Stewart Brand, of BHP, Australia.

If you would like to exhibit, please let us know as soon as possible, as only one booth is available for rental at the moment.

Critical Minerals '24 is the first in the series and is sponsored by Promet101, AECI Mining Chemicals, Capstone Copper, Steinert, Petrolab, and Conundrum, with media partners International Mining and Minerals Engineering.

There will be two keynote lectures. "Battery minerals, or battery metals? That is the question, but what about battery materials?" will be given by Prof Alan Butcher, Chief Scientist & Technical Director, Hafren Scientific Group, UK and "Extractive Metallurgy of Rare Earths" will be given by Damien Krebs, Study Manager and metallurgist at Primero Group, Australia. We currently have one exhibit booth still available for rental.

We look forward to your involvement in Cape Town in November.

#Process Mineralogy24
#CriticalMinerals24

From comminution to flotation: bridging the gap

What are the objectives of comminution? Its most basic aim is to liberate. That is, in primary grinding liberate the non-sulphide gangue so it can be rejected during rougher flotation; and in regrinding to liberate the valuable sulphides from the sulphide gangue to achieve a saleable concentrate grade during cleaner flotation, without losing recovery. Therefore, the comminution circuit is an integral step in the process of making a saleable concentrate. By itself, the product from a comminution circuit does not have a commercial value, and like mining it is part of the cost of producing a concentrate that can be sold.

A considerable amount of intellectual energy has been expended over the years by academia and industry alike studying comminution to understand breakage, developing models to predict comminution performance and how to become more energy efficient. Few of these studies have looked beyond grinding to examine its impact on downstream processes.

Of particular interest to Dr. Chris Greet, Manager Mineral Processing Research at Magotteaux Australia Pty Ltd, is the impact of regrind mills on the pulp chemistry and subsequent flotation response in base metal sulphide operations. For it is the chemical reactions that occur within the grinding mill that have an inherent influence on the surface chemistry of the particles we are trying to separate and make a saleable concentrate.

At Flotation '25 Chris will present a keynote lecture discussing the methods employed for selecting media for use in regrind mills, and provide some insights into the pulp chemistry of the slurries leaving these mills and how this effects the flotation response. Solutions will be discussed on how to restore the pulp chemistry and improve flotation performance by giving a number of examples from copper and lead/zinc operations.

#Flotation25

Four mineral processors in top 0.05% of all scholars worldwide

I have never been a great fan of ranking-lists, such as those comparing University departments around the world. Some are dubious to say the least, and are often biased. 

Ranking individuals is usually subjective but ScholarGPS is a California-based company that applies artificial intelligence, data mining, machine learning, and other data science techniques to its massive database of over 200 million publications and 3 billion citations to rank over 30 million scholars worldwide.

Highly Ranked Scholars are the most productive (number of publications) authors whose works are of profound impact (citations) and of utmost quality (h-index). and are those with ScholarGPS Ranks of 0.05% or better. The data used to identify the ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholars are based on lifetime or recent five-year activity, weighting each publication and citation by the number of authors, and excluding self-citations.

No mineral processors appear in the recent 5 year activity period, but four very well known scientists appear in the lifetime activity rankings. It is not surprising that they are all flotation specialists and are all 'old timers', as scientists build up their list of citations over the years, and all four were active back into last century. I am particularly pleased that all four have had varying involvements with MEI over the years.

Ranked number 1 is Douglas Fuerstenau, Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California Berkeley. He is a legendary mineral processor who I interviewed in 2015 for the blog.

I last met him in Denver in 2019 when he was presented with the 2018 International Mineral Processing Council's Distinguished Service Award (DSA). He was the first person in the history of the IMPC Congresses, which go back to London in 1952, to be awarded both the Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the DSA. Following the presentation, I felt privileged to receive an invitation from the IMPC to participate in a photo session of past and present recipients of the Award. At that moment, we were the sole living recipients of this distinguished honour.

Prof Fuerstenau (2nd right) and me, with IMPC President-Elect Ralph Holmes,
and outgoing President Cyril O'Connor

Ranked second is John Ralston, Emiritus Laureate Professor of the University of South Australia, who I first met in St. Louis, USA in 1986. Two years later I set up Minerals Engineering journal, and he was an obvious choice to represent Australia on the Editorial Board, which he did for over two decades. I interviewed him for the blog in 2014 and he presented a keynote lecture at MEI's Flotation '19 in Cape Town.

South Australian of the Year, Officer of the Order of Australia, these are just two of the many accolades and awards showered on John, the founding Director of the University of South Australia's Ian Wark Research Institute. 

Barbara and I had the opportunity to give John and his wife Ann a tour of Cornwall back in 2018. Then, in August 2022, I had the chance to catch up with John and Ann in their hometown of Melbourne. During our conversation, John shared fond memories of the late Olivia Newton-John, with whom he briefly danced at Christchurch Grammar School in Melbourne. Reflecting on his time "standing all over her feet," it's no surprise he didn't audition to be her partner in Grease!

With the Ralstons at Falmouth's Chain Locker in 2018

Ranked number 3 is Jim Finch, Emeritus Professor at McGill University, Canada, who I first met at a NATO conference in Falmouth in 1986. Among his many honours, Jim received the IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. 

Unlike many academic researchers his work has not just been laboratory based but has had a major impact on industrial practice through his very close association with industry throughout his career. I interviewed him for the blog in 2015 and when I suggested to Elsevier that Jim would be the only person that I would like to have in charge of the 8th edition of Mineral Processing Technology, I never expected him to agree. But he accepted with enthusiasm, and maybe a little trepidation, and put together a strong team which delivered what I consider to be a superb update of the text.

A book signing with Jim in Phoenix in 2016

Jim has had a long involvement with MEI, being our consultant to the flotation series of conferences, and at Flotation '21 he presented a keynote lecture on the appreciation of the life and work of Prof. Graeme Jameson, of the University of Newcastle, Australia, also a holder of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jim is pictured below at Flotation '15 with Prof Jameson (2nd right), Nag Nagaraj (2nd left) and Janusz Laskowski, all recipients of the SME's Antoine Gaudin Award. Prof. Laskowski is also a holder of the IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award (2008). 

Ranked number 4, Janusz Laskowski, Professor Emeritus of mineral processing at the University of British Columbia, Canada, was interviewed for the blog in 2019. I first met him at the 1988 IMPC Congress in Stockholm, and have caught up with him at every IMPC, apart from Moscow, since then, as well as occasional SMEs, and at MEI’s flotation conferences. He was a keynote speaker at Flotation ’15 in Cape Town.

It is good to see these eminent mineral processors recognised by the inaugural listings of ScholarGPS and presumably using AI removes the possibility of bias often associated with human assessments? 

Also ranked are mining universities, institutional rankings being based on the quality and quantity of active scholars in each institution who are highly productive (number of publications) and have generated outstanding work of meaningful impact (citations) and excellent quality (h-index). Rankings are based on the lifetime or prior five-year contributions of the included scholars, weighting each publication and citation by the number of authors, and excluding self-citations. 

Dr. Samayamutthirian Palaniandy: 1974-2024

There was very sad news in from Australia last week of the untimely death of Dr. Samayamutthirian Palaniandy, General Manager at Nippon Eirich, Australia. who I spoke to only 2 months ago at the SME Annual Meeting in Phoenix, where he was with his USA colleague Tyler Rhea.

Sam and Tyler in Phoenix

Sam, as he was known, contributed a great deal to five of MEI's comminution conferences. His first appearance was at Comminution '08 in Falmouth, representing the Universiti Sains Malaysia, where he lectured from 2001 to 2011. He can just be seen on the right on a very wet visit to the Camborne-Redruth mining district.

In November 2011 he moved to Australia for 4 years as a senior researcher in stirred milling technology at the JKMRC in Brisbane and he presented papers on behalf of JKMRC at Comminution '12 and Comminution '14. 

Sam, 2nd right with JKMRC colleague Malcolm Powell and Metso staff at Comminution '14

Relaxing with Peter Radziszweski at Comminution '14

From JKMRC he moved to Nippon Eirich Australia, where he was General Manager and Global Product Manager for the TowerMill. He would have been in Cape Town next month to present a paper at Mill Circuits '24 on the TowerMill, as he did at Comminution '18 and Comminution '23.

With Nick Wilshaw of Grinding Solutions Ltd at Comminution '18

Sam will be greatly missed, not only as a great mineral processor but as a very warm and friendly person. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

April summary

The month began with some sad news, of the death of a very well-liked and respected member of the Camborne School of Mines research team.  Tony Ball died on the first of the month and had spent over 28 years at CSM, from July 1977 until his retirement in December 2005.

His friend, the late Dr. Alan Bromley, head of geology at CSM and later the founder of Cornish Company Petrolab, recognised Tony's potential and employed him as a technician to prepare thin and polished sections. Totally self-taught he soon became a Senior Technician in charge of the scanning electron microscope where he produced some amazing results for many research projects. 

Tony with Amanda Wills in July 1989 when Amanda was on work-experience at CSM

When CSM was absorbed into the University of Exeter and moved to the new Tremough campus at Penryn, Tony was promoted to lead technician and continued with his main role with SEM and related instrumental analysis, including the newly installed QEM-SEM. Our sincere condolences to his wife Marge and family.

I unfortunately was unable to attend Tony's funeral in Camborne, as Barbara and I were cruising the Iberian coast, the highlight in the first week being Cádiz, and Casablanca in the second week the most disappointing port of call.

Cádiz

We also missed the April Cornish Mining Sundowner, on a sunny evening at Falmouth's Chain Locker. I thank CSM Association Secretary Carol Richards for the photo below. There are many new faces who I do not recognise, including 13 students on the first year CSM Degree Apprenticeship in Mining Engineering, who were visiting CSM for two weeks for their first residential course of the programme.