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.