Monday at Process Mineralogy '24

The 7th in MEI's series of process mineralogy conferences saw a welcome return to Cape Town and the Vineyard Hotel after an absence of six years due to the pandemic. The last meeting, Process Mineralogy '22, was held in Sitges, Spain, due to uncertainties on Covid restrictions in South Africa.

As ores become of lower grade and increasing complexity, so the importance of process mineralogy increases. The green revolution's pressure to increase the supply of raw materials means that more secondary mining and processing will be necessary, and the three keynotes this week will highlight the importance and future of geometallurgy, the treatment of mine waste, and the trends in the mining and processing of a keynote Li-ion battery metal, cobalt, in relation to mineralogy.

Jon Wills opened the conference this morning, welcoming the 109 delegates from 20 countries. Jon thanked our sponsors Zeiss, Capstone Copper, Promet101, Petrolab, and AECI Mining Chemicals for their support, our media partners International Mining and Minerals Engineering, and our Industry Advocate the Critical Minerals Association. Many thanks also to our consultant Prof. Megan Becker, of the University of Cape Town, for her continued enthusiasm and advice.

Following Jon's opening remarks it was my pleasure to present the 2023 MEI Young Person's Award to Paulina Vallejos of the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile. Paulina was nominated by her Professor, Juan Yianatos, Romke Kuyvenhoven, Member of the International Mineral Processing Council and Francisco Melo of Doña Inés de Collahuasi mining company, Chile, with support from Ahmad Hassanzadeh, of Maelgwyn Mineral Services, UK, a former MEI Award winner. Paulina has had a brilliant career in mineral processing since graduating and a full report of her nomination is in the posting of 11th April 2024.

It was good to see that Paulina's family had come all the way from Chile to see her presented with the award.

Paulina with her aunt, mother, partner and sister

And on the subject of families, this morning's session was co-chaired by husband and wife team Nathan Fox and Anita Parbhakar-Fox, of the University of Queensland, who introduced the first keynote speaker at the conference, Stewart Brand, of BHP, Australia, who looked at the future of geometallurgy.

Stewart (centre) with Nathan and Anita

Stewart's keynote was the first of eight papers in the morning session and seven in the afternoon session. A summary of the papers will be published in a couple of weeks time. The day's papers were broken up by a long lunch break and two long coffee breaks, giving everyone time to talk to the nine exhibitors and the thirteen poster presenters.

At the end of a beautiful sunny day, it was nice to relax over a few drinks at the evening sundowner in the Vineyard gardens.

Weekend in Cape Town

Barbara and I arrived in Cape Town mid-day on Friday, by British Airways from Heathrow.  Twenty four hours later Jon arrived, by Turkish Airlines from Luxembourg via Istanbul, closely followed by Amanda and two of her friends from the Helford Rowing Club. They took the long route from Heathrow by Ethiopian Airlines, via Addis Ababa. So, all in place for the week's conferences at the Vineyard Hotel and on Saturday evening we all got together for a fine meal at the excellent Belthazar Restaurant on the Waterfront.

Today has been cool and cloudy, but it was good to have lunch at the Vineyard with Jan Thomas, wife of the late Roger Thomas, and our long-standing conference agent Rene Simpson.

Rene, Barbara and Jan

Then after a short rest it was time to welcome the first of our delegates to Process Mineralogy '24.

Awful news from Australia of Rosemary Franzidis killed in crash involving an allegedly stolen car

Barbara and I arrived in Cape Town today to hear the tragic news that Rosemary Franzidis, wife of J-P Franzidis, former consultant to MEI's flotation conferences and now an Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town, has been tragically killed in a crash near Brisbane, where Rose and J-P have been living since J-Ps retirement.

"Rosemary Franzidis was a much-loved wife, mother, and grandmother, who cherished her family more than anything in the world," her family said in a statement. 

Rose was a lovely lady who will be missed by friends and family in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia and the USA. Our thoughts are with our good friend J-P, their three daughters, and three grandchildren.

J-P and Rose Franzidis with the MEI team and Simon Bailey, at Comminution '14 in Cape Town

A conference to avoid?

MEI's Amanda is a woman of many talents, but she would be the first to admit that metallurgy does not count among them. So she was a little surprised to receive a formal invitation to join the organising committee for the upcoming Metallurgical Engineering & Mineral Processing Conference, scheduled to be held on August 04-06, 2025 in Frankfurt, Germany.

The invitation states that "we have carefully reviewed your impressive contributions and eminence in the field of Metallurgy and Mineral Processing. Your expertise and insights would greatly enrich our conference, and we believe you would be an excellent fit for the Conference".

Echoes of WASET came to mind, the series of conferences that we exposed in 2013 and were shown, judging by the 130+ comments, to have no place on a calendar of respected international conferences, such as that published by MEI.

So I tested the Frankfurt conference just as I did 11 years ago and and submitted my WASET paper, which would not pass even the briefest of professional appraisals, let alone a rigorous peer-review. It was basically a "technical note" summarising my April Fool's Day blog of 2012 :

"Could homeopathy provide the key to collectorless flotation?".

It was total nonsense, but just over a week later I was honoured to receive a formal email to advise that my abstract had been accepted by the review committee for in-person presentation. And the crunch- I was kindly requested to confirm my slot via a given link, which required me to register with payment. I could also pay for accommodation via the link, although there was no mention of where this might be, apart from Frankfurt, which is a fairly big city!

I responded by saying that I was surprised to hear that my paper had been accepted for presentation after peer-review, with no revisions necessary, as I felt that the paper was not perfect and I was hoping for some feedback. I asked if they could let me know who was on the review panel, but so far I have had no response.

It's fairly obvious that this is a conference to avoid. The fact that there is no venue mentioned on the website, and that they require money upfront suggests strongly that this is a money-making scam.

Memories of Precious Metals '04 Cape Town

Twenty years ago this month, Precious Metals '04 was held at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town. Attended by 57 delegates, the conference was sponsored by Impala Platinum. Papers were published in Volume 18 Number 8 of Minerals Engineering.

Below are some memories from the 3-day event, particularly of the wine tasting and conference dinner at Groot Constantia, South Africa's oldest wine estate.