January summary

The first week of January rarely provides much professional news, but there was good news from Scotland on the first of the month, when we heard that my old friend and former Camborne School of Mines colleague, Prof. Richard Williams, was awarded the CBE in the New Year's Honours list. Commander of the Order of the British Empire is an award given to people who have made a significant contribution to the country and to their area of activity. The CBE is the highest ranking Order of the British Empire excluding a knighthood or damehood and is one level up on the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) an award which Richard has also held since 2009.

Richard is Principal and Vice Chancellor at Heriot-Watt University, UK and I first met him in 1986 in Falmouth at the NATO Advanced Study Institute Mineral Processing at a Crossroads. Richard was then a research associate at Imperial College, just after being awarded his PhD. I have followed his meteoric career progression since then and we were pleased to see him at Critical Minerals '24 in Cape Town last November, where he delivered an excellent presentation. Many congratulations, Richard, on a well deserved award honouring an outstanding career.

Richard with Barbara and me at Critical Minerals '24 dinner at Groot Constantia wine estate

The professional world awakened again in the second week of the month, after its festive slumber, but it was a week of natural disasters and chaos. Much of the UK was covered in snow, and heavy rains caused severe flooding, leading to more than usual travel chaos on road and rail. But this was nothing compared to the earthquake in Tibet, which led to major loss of life, and the apocalyptic wildfires in California, which devastated the Los Angeles area with major loss of property and lives.

West Cornwall tends to miss such extremes and our thoughts were mainly on the next MEI conference, Comminution '25, with its record number of papers, and a major exhibition, with all 30 booths sold by the end of the first week of the month. We are pleased that Glencore Technology and CEEC are running workshops on the afternoon before the conference welcoming reception. Two regulars who will be sorely missed are Sam Palaniandy, who died last May (posting of 6th May 2024) and John Starkey, who died earlier this month (posting of 15th January 2025).  John's memorial service is in Oakville, Ontario today.

All efforts are being made to ensure the success of Comminution '25, and of Flotation '25 in November, and it is a bonus that, due to the internet, we can live and work anywhere in the world.  In the middle of the month Amanda took herself off to Thailand for a 10 day working holiday, keeping in touch daily with me in Cornwall and Jon in Luxembourg, while enjoying the warmth.

On the 20th of the month Donald Trump was once more unleashed on the world, beginning his term as 47th US President by pledging a boost in fossil fuel production, vowing to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, the world's most important effort to tackle rising temperatures. The US will now join Iran, Yemen and Libya as the only countries to currently stand outside the agreement, which was signed 10 years ago in the French capital. Trump's ignorance of the agreement was echoed in his statement in 2017 that he had been elected to represent the people of Pittsburgh and "not Paris". The following months should be interesting!

Does gold mining have a place in the green transition?

Way back in 1978 I descended 12,000 feet underground in the world's deepest mine, Western Deep Levels gold mine in Carletonville, South Africa. The miners toiled under arduous conditions, the temperature of the rock reaching 66°C at the greatest depths, slurry ice being pumped underground to cool the tunnel air to below 30°C. Due to the enormous pressures, rock bursts, the sudden and explosive failure of the rock mass near excavation boundaries, were a constant threat and the constant creaking of the rock was a little concerning.

Western Deeps 1978

Even then, in my early days in mining, I felt it bizarre that enormous efforts were being made to extract gold from the bowels of the earth in order to produce gold ingots which were stored underground again in vast vaults, such as those at Fort Knox, which I was very familiar with having seen Goldfinger several times.

Some thirty years later I voiced my concerns about gold mining in the first year of the blog (How do we argue the case for gold mining?). As everything we use is either mined or grown, it is easy to argue the case for mining most commodities, but I did not find it so easy for gold.

Until 2006 South Africa was the world's leading gold producer, in 2022 it languished in 10th place, China now leading the field, producing around 10% of global total gold production, which in 2023 was over 3000 tonnes. 

Source: World Gold Council

The vast majority of the gold mined today has relatively little practical use. Only about 10% of the world’s gold demand comes from industry, where it is used primarily as an efficient, corrosion-proof conductor of energy, mainly in electronic equipment such as computers and smart phones, and in dentistry. About half of the current gold in the world exists as jewellery, with the other roughly 40% hoarded in coins and bullion by investors and central banks. The US Geological Survey estimates that around 57,000 tonnes of gold are still waiting to be mined, but my question is why mine it?

At least 10% of global gold production comes as a by-product of base metal mining, mainly from copper and to a lesser extent from lead mining and this is sufficient for industrial use.   This implies that the output from gold-only mines produces metal only to satisfy the needs of the jewellery and investment businesses. 

Do we need more gold for storing in vaults? According to the World Gold Council 212,000 tonnes of gold have already been mined and 22% of this is is stored, so 47,000 tonnes is already stored in vaults. In the 2009 posting there was a report that Swiss banks were running out of secure storage space for gold bullion held by investors and institutions in their vaults. One Swiss bank reported that it was having to relocate some of its stored silver bullion to another site to make room for gold. 

Jewellery can be made more sustainable by alloying gold with other metals, as is the case with 18 karat gold, commonly used in jewellery, which is 18 parts gold and 6 parts other metals, commonly silver and copper.

The environmental impact of burning fossil fuels is well known, but fossil fuels are essential to the green transition. However the mining of gold ores also has a huge environmental footprint. Gold ores have the lowest grade of all mined metals, the average grade being between 5 and 8 grams of gold per tonne.  This is 0.0008% Au, so around half a billion tonnes of rock has to be mined annually. The energy required to mine, comminute and process this vast amount of rock is enormous. It has been estimated that gold mines emit more greenhouse gases than all passenger flights between European nations combined. 

Gold mining generates more waste than any other metal. If not properly managed, tailings can potentially affect soil, water, and air quality. They can leak toxic substances, including acid mine drainage, into the environment. Billions of cubic metres of contamination have been released since cyanide heap leaching emerged in the 1970s. 

There is much gold in waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE), which with more efficient recycling practices could contribute to the gold needed outside industrial use.  The recovery process can be challenging, as it often involves dismantling devices and carefully extracting precious metals from tiny components. Advances in WEEE recycling technologies are improving recovery rates, but there's still a lot of room for growth.

The minerals industry has a skills shortage and many talented mining and minerals engineers are involved with gold mining and processing, who might be better employed elsewhere, enhancing the recovery of truly critical metals and minerals and moving civilisation to the goal of a circular economy by seeking ways to facilitate recycling.

There is 100 times more gold in a tonne of smartphones than in a tonne of gold ore. It is estimated that there are around 7 billion smart phones in existence, and over 1.5 billion new ones are produced annually. Estimates suggest that over 150 million smartphones end up in landfills each year globally and many are stashed in desks and drawers, due to the high turnover rate of smartphones, with many devices discarded when users upgrade to newer models.

WEE contains critical and essential metals such as gallium, germanium and indium, which are all by-products of base metal mining, particularly zinc mining. Will we ever see a day when we say that gold, an essential metal in electronics, is also produced only as a by-product of the mining of base metals, particularly copper?

I doubt it! This is all very idealistic of course. I am sure that the allure and insatiable quest for gold, which has endured for millennia, will continue. There are very cogent arguments for gold mining, which contributes substantially to the socio-economic development of its host communities and countries. Value is created and distributed in many ways, including through employment, local procurement, tax revenues, enhanced infrastructure and better access to healthcare and education. With responsible management and investment, it can help drive growth and development while improving the lives of local communities. The lives of many artisanal miners in poorer countries are dependent on gold mining, although illegal artisanal gold mining is the biggest single source of mercury contamination in the environment.

But I will always feel uneasy when someone asks me to justify gold mining! It must rank as one of mankind’s more futile occupations, much of the gold that is dug up so expensively being destined to be buried somewhere else.

Barry Wills, MEI

Kemtec Africa the latest sponsor of Flotation '25

In 2017 we were pleased to announce that Kemtec, a new Australian company, supplying specialty flotation reagents to tackle plant challenges, was to sponsor Flotation '17 in Cape Town. Two years later we welcomed the young company back as a sponsor of Flotation '19.

The company has grown since then and is now a global group of specialised mineral processing reagent companies, located in USA, Australia, Mexico and China, with Kemtec Africa servicing the African continent.  In 2021 we welcomed Kemtec Africa as a sponsor of Flotation '21, an online event due to Covid, and the company then sponsored Flotation '23 in Cape Town.

We are very pleased to have Kemtec Africa on board once again, as a sponsor of Flotation '25. We are currently calling for abstracts for the conference, which should be submitted via the online portal by the end of May.

"I would encourage all those young and not so young mineral processors with a passion for bubbles to put their fingers to the keyboard and write an abstract for Flotation 2025 in Cape Town. This conference is renowned for bringing academics and industry together to discuss the science of mineral froth flotation- an event not to be missed!"
Dr. Chris Greet, Global Mineral Processing Specialist at Magotteaux, Principal Consultant at Mineralis Consultants and Adjunct Associate Research Professor at University of South Australia.

Exploring Mpumalanga

South Africa is one of the most beautiful and geographically diverse countries on earth, and there are many options for exploring after an MEI Conference in Cape Town. 

One of the country’s most interesting and beautiful regions is Mpumalanga, formerly the Eastern Transvaal. Mpumalanga (Zulu name for "the place where the sun rises") is a province in eastern South Africa, bordering the nations of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) and Mozambique. It lies north of KwaZulu-Natal (see posting of 25 November 2024) and in the northeast the land rises towards the peaks of the Drakensberg mountains and then terminates in an immense escarpment. In some places this escarpment plunges hundreds of metres down to the low-lying area known as the Lowveld.

After MEI Conferences in Cape Town in 2009, Barbara and I flew from Cape Town to Mpumalanga's capital Nelspruit (now Mbombela), rented a car and based ourselves at Sabie, from where we could easily explore the main attractions of the province, particularly the Panorama Route, a scenic road that connects many natural and cultural attractions, and ends at the border of Mpumalanga and the Limpopo province. 

There are more waterfalls around Sabie than anywhere else in Southern Africa so it is worth spending a few days visiting some of them and hiking some of the trails leading to them.

Only 9 km from Sabie on the old tarred road is the Lone Creek Falls, only a short walk through a beautiful indigenous forest. The waterfall has been declared a National Monument, and reaches 68 m.

The Horseshoe Falls are also along the Sabie River and although not very high, they have been declared a national monument.

Lone Creek and Horseshoe Falls

Further north, on the Mac-Mac River, the Mac-Mac Falls plunges 70 m into a deep pool, and can be approached by a 2km walk from the Mac-Mac Pools.

Mac-Mac Falls

Just off the Panorama Route are the  Berlin and Lisbon falls. 

Berlin Falls cascade from the centre of a sheer cliff that stands roughly 80m tall. Berlin Falls gets its name from miners who ventured to South Africa from Europe during the gold rush, and named each waterfall in the region after their home towns, or places from their home countries.

Berlin Falls

Nearby is Mpumulanga's highest waterfall, at 94 m, the Lisbon Falls, one of the most dramatic and scenic waterfalls in the region, situated on a tributary of the Blyde River.

Lisbon Falls

Relaxing by the Blyde River

A short distance east of the Berlin and Lisbon Falls is God's Window, which has inspired and awed thousands of painters and photographers from all over the world. A very steep stepped footpath along the edge of the escarpment leads to the actual view points, where the cliffs plunge down 700m, with views over the Lowveld to the Kruger National Park and towards the Lebombo Mountains on South Africa’s border with Mozambique.

God's Window

The Blyde River Canyon is the 3rd largest canyon in the world, after the Grand Canyon and Namibia's Fish River Canyon.  It begins 35km from God's Window at the bizarre natural water features of Borke's Luck Potholes, one of South Africa's major tourist attractions. They are the result of thousands of years of swirling eddies of water where the Treur River meets the Blyde River, the tumult of which has caused extensive water erosion,

Blyde River Canyon and Borke's Potholes

Perhaps saving the best to last, the Panorama Route end with the Three Rondavels, three round mountains with slightly pointed tops, very similar to the traditional round or oval African homesteads called rondavels. The viewpoint is spectacular, looking over the canyon to the Three Rondavels on the other side of the northern edges of the Drakensberg range of mountains. 

The Three Rondavels tower approximately 700 metres over the surrounding countryside and their distinctive shapes are the result of erosion, soft, underlying stone being whittled and washed away by the weather, leaving the tougher slate and quartzite layers visible.

Mpumalanga is not only beautiful, it also has a rich mining history. Gold was discovered in the province in 1883 in the mountains surrounding what is now Barberton, well worth a visit although 100km south of Sabie. The town is set in a basin surrounded by the oldest mountains in the world. The Mkhonjwa Mountains date back 3.5 billion years, with some of the oldest exposed rocks, volcanic in origin, known as the Barberton Greenstone Belt. A bacterial micro-fossil, the first form of life on earth, was found here and has been identified as being 3.2 billion years old.

Gold was found  here in 1883, and in 1884 Graham Barber discovered an incredibly rich gold reef, which created the famous 'Barberton boom' as miners flocked to the area.  Gold was also discovered in the hills above Barberton, and in 1885 the Sheba Reef Gold Mining Company was formed. The Sheba mine is still in operation, the oldest and richest gold mine in South Africa. However Barberton flourished for only a brief period, as in 1886 the Australian prospector George Harrison stumbled upon the giant Witwatersrand gold-bearing reef, which made all other deposits pale into insignificance. The miners moved on to the new town of Johannesburg, and South Africa's 20th century world dominance in gold mining had begun.

Barberton

The first large-scale production of gold began when alluvial deposits were discovered at Pilgrim’s Rest. After it was officially declared a gold field in September 1873, the town suddenly grew,  but In the 1880s the alluvial gold dwindled and prospectors were attracted to Barberton's newly discovered gold deposits.

Pilgrim's Rest is certainly worth visiting as it is only 35 km north of Sabie. Now a restored gold mining town museum it is peaceful and photogenic but in 1873 1500 diggers worked 4000 claims in grueling and unhygienic conditions.  Many of them died from malaria and dysentery after arduous treks through the Lowveld, some passing over the giant gold reef which slumbered under their feet, and would be woken a decade later.

If all this isn't enough to encourage you to visit Mpumulanga, Kruger National Park, one of Africa's largest game reserves, is only 87 km away from Sabie (see Travels in Limpopo).

Letaba River, Kruger National Park

Oliphants River, Kruger National Park

January Cornish Mining Sundowner

A modest turnout last night at the County Arms Hotel, Truro, for the first Cornish mining sundowner of the year.

There is no new local news this month, so here is some old news- a little nostalgia from the Camborne School of Mines Graduation Day in 1990. Unfortunately not exactly HD, but you may recognise a few faces.

Next month, on February 20th, the sundowner returns to the Chain Locker in Falmouth for 10 months. Sundowners are on the third Thursday of each month, so if you are in town on those dates we would very much like you to join us.

John Starkey: 1936-2025

We had very sad news yesterday from Canada of the death of John Starkey, the founding President and Principal Consulting Engineer of Starkey & Associates, the name behind a number of the most successful grinding circuit designs in the mining industry. 

John and Donna Starkey

Over the last 25 years Barbara and I, and Jon and Amanda, have become great friends of John and his dear wife Donna, and despite being separated by over 3.500 miles, we have kept in touch by email and phone, and regular meetings around the world, particularly in Cape Town, where Starkey & Associates has been a regular sponsor of MEI's comminution conferences, and at SME Meetings in USA and memorably in Falmouth.

Dining in Cape Town, 2018

Barbara with John and Donna in Denver 2013, and with me in Phoenix in 2020

Visiting Falmouth in 2018

John Starkey graduated as a mining engineer in 1961 from the University of Toronto. He had wide experience in mines and process plants, his career including work at Kam Kotia, Kidd Creek, and INCO mines and mills.  He worked at Kilborn (now SNC Lavalin) for 12 years designing the Gays River, East Kemptville and Quintette process plants.  From 1964 he worked in SAG mill hardness testing as pilot plant engineer for A. MacPherson’s projects. 

John founded Starkey & Associates in 2000 and the company is now a global leader in ore hardness measurement, and grinding circuit design and optimisation, particularly for SAG mills.  He invented and co-developed the SPI and SAGDesign tests which are both widely used in industry today for the measurement of ore hardness for AG and SAG mill designs. His mission has always been to capture for clients the rich benefits of SAG milling technology, to help them find the most economical way to grind their ore.

In 2017 the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum awarded John the CIM Fellowship for his "outstanding contribution to the mineral processing field". He also became a CIM Distinguished Lecturer, in recognition of his "remarkable contribution to comminution design and practice", and as such spoke at CIM Branch and Student Chapter meetings across Canada, as well as being a frequent lecturer globally at universities, teaching the fundamentals of AG/SAG grinding mill operation and design.  In 2021 he presented a keynote lecture at Comminution '21, MEI's only online comminution conference.

The CIM Fellowship Award in 2017

As well as being an outstanding engineer, John was a very popular person with many friends and colleagues worldwide, as shown by the selection of photos below.

John and Donna at Comminution '12, Cape Town, with Arkady Senchenko and Anna Shevtsova

Salt Lake City, 2014

Comminution '14 Cape Town

John (5th left) with Comminution '14 delegates, hiking Table Mountain

At 77 years of age, John was MEI's oldest ever Table Mountaineer

Denver 2015 with Spencer Reeves

Comminution '16, Cape Town, with Peter Radziszewski, Brian Loveday and Spencer Reeves

IMPC, Quebec City, 2016 with Jon Wills and Dave Meadows

Comminution '18, Cape Town with Felicity and Nick Wilshaw

Comminution '18, Cape Town, with Erik Spiller

Denver 2017 with Jenna Hedderson and Hans von Michaelis

With Physical Separation '19 delegates at the Chain Locker, Falmouth

A recording of John's memorial service is available. On behalf of us all at MEI, deepest condolences to Donna and the family. You are very much in our thoughts.

An invitation by Glencore Technology to an IsaMill workshop at Comminution '25

The need to grind ever finer, as ores have become more complex and of lower grade, has led to the successful adoption of stirred mills. The most successful of these has been the IsaMill, which has led the way in energy efficient ultra-fine grinding since its development in the early 1990s.

IsaMill

In the 6th edition of my book Mineral Processing Technology I highlighted, in the Introduction, the inability to treat the huge zinc-lead- silver deposit at McArthur River in Australia. Discovered in 1955, for 35 years it resisted attempts to find an economic processing route and it ranked as one of the world's largest undeveloped deposits, with reserves estimated at 227 million tonnes, Due to the extremely fine dissemination and intergrowth of the minerals, attempts to treat the ore by existing processing methods had proved fruitless. 

The 6th edition was published in 1997 so I must have written this section shortly after the publication of the 5th edition in 1992, because in 1995 the McArthur River mine commenced production, the concentrator producing a bulk lead-zinc concentrate with an extremely fine product size of 80% minus 7 microns.

Development of a circuit for McArthur River ore recommenced in August 1989 at Mount Isa under the direction of Bill Johnson, the Milling Research Manager (posting of 27 August 2020). The ore was even more difficult to treat than the Mount Isa zinc-lead ore, well known for its difficult properties; one important outcome of the McArthur River project was the IsaMill, developed from the stirred milling technology of Netzsch Feinmahltechnik GmbH.

The mill was successfully introduced at  Mount Isa Mines and the Lead/Zinc Concentrator manager at that time was Joe Pease, who said that the team delivered the first significant breakthrough in fine grinding in 50 years, and the most significant development since SAG milling. The work at Mount Isa led to the development of the fine grinding necessary for mineral liberation of the McArthur River ore.

Joe Pease and Bill Johnson in Denver for their induction into
International Mining Hall of Fame in 2017

Mechanical Engineer Peter Woodall played a very important role in the pilot plant phase, the design modification phase and in numerous later activities with the mill and in 2008 Bill and Peter shared the Mineral Industry Operating Technique Award, for the development of the IsaMill technology.

The IsaMill technology, which is marketed by Glencore Technology, has spread into other duties in mineral processing and larger models have been developed, resulting in a large number operating in industry. The benefits of fine grinding in the IsaMill are now being applied at increasingly coarser grind sizes, and to a diverse range of minerals, a remarkable transition from the original small-scale applications. Larger ceramic media is now pushing the boundaries of feed size and can offer advantages in grinding efficiencies, product size distribution and internal wear.

Prior to Comminution '23, conference sponsor Glencore Technology held an afternoon workshop on the IsaMill at the Vineyard Hotel, attended by around 40 delegates.

Glencore workshop at Comminution '23

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the IsaMill, Glencore Technology invite Comminution '25 delegates to an exclusive workshop "Expanding the capability and application of the IsaMill" on Sunday 30 March immediately prior to the Comminution '25 welcoming reception. In the 2 hour workshop the Glencore Technology team will lead interactive sessions to help delegates make the right choices for their unique processing needs. Full details can be found on the workshop flyer.

#Comminution25

Green Flotation Depressants

Depression is used to increase the selectivity of flotation by rendering certain minerals hydrophilic, thus preventing their flotation. They are key to the economic flotation of many ores. They are generally classed as inorganics, small organics, and organic polymers. The use of polymeric depressants has the attraction of being less hazardous than the more widely used inorganic depressants, such as cyanide, which are widely used in sulphide systems. 

Biodegradable depressants are becoming more important due to environmental concerns and the need for environmentally friendly processes. They can replace or assist inorganic and toxic reagents in various flotation conditions.

Green Flotation Depressants, authored by Saeed Chehreh Chelgani et al, is a new publication on biodegradable depressants, delving deep into their performance, intricate structures, and adsorption mechanisms. The book describes diverse minerals and materials where these depressants have been used for their upgrading. Encompassing the entirety of current research, it is aimed at industry professionals and researchers in the field, especially on courses centered around froth flotation and recycling. From starch-based solutions to the diverse array of gums and the intriguing polyaspartate and tripolyphosphates each section unfolds a rich tapestry of knowledge, providing a holistic understanding of biodegradable depressants and their pivotal role in mineral processing.

Steinert to sponsor Comminution '25 and Physical Separation '26

I think everyone in the mining industry is now well aware of how important sensor-based electronic sorting has become and MEI is pleased to have the continuing involvement of Steinert, one of the leaders in this field. Steinert sponsored two of last year's 4 MEI conferences, Physical Separation '24 and Critical Minerals '24.

A busy Steinert booth at Physical Separation 24.......

.....and at Critical Minerals '24

It is not surprising that Steinert is to sponsor Comminution '25, as sorting waste rock and ore with low concentrations prior to comminution saves energy and water and enriches the grade of the ore.

Steinert's ‘dual energy’ x-ray transmission (XRT) is ideally suited for ore sorting because the x-ray radiation can penetrate stones with particle sizes up to 100 mm, allowing metals to be detected, even when they are not on the surface. 

In addition to XRT, Steinert offers other sensors that can be combined with one another. XRF (x-ray fluorescence) can be used to determine and sort individual chemical elements very precisely and optical sorting and lasers are well suited to the detection of ores with different colours, or crystalline structures.

Steinert is also the first sponsor to sign up for Physical Separation '26. There are many applications of Steinert technology in physical separation.  Electronic sorting has long been used in the recovery of diamonds, X-ray sorting systems screening out diamonds accurately and with high throughput rates at an early stage in the process. In contrast to conventional x-ray luminance processes, Steinert diamond sorting machines use high-resolution x-ray transmission sensors that screen the rock throughout. Detection takes place at the atomic level, and surface impurities do not affect the detection. This solution can be used early in the process in order to remove large diamonds before they are damaged or broken up in the subsequent crusher stages. Near-infrared (NIR) technology is also being used to analyse the complete material stream and reliably separate kimberlite from waste rock. Modern sorters have great advantages over the conventional sink/float process, not only in diamond processing.

We look forward to hearing the latest developments in electronic sorting at Comminution '25 and Physical Separation '26.

#Comminution25
#PhysicalSeparation26

Wishing you all the best for 2025

Five years ago this month I wondered what would be the main issues facing the world and the mining industry in 2020. Predicting the future is an impossible task I said. How true, as 2 months later the world ground to a halt with the onslaught of the Covid pandemic and the cancellation of all major events, including four MEI conferences and the International Mineral Processing Congress in Cape Town.

So I am a little wary now of expressing too much optimism, but I do hope for a year which sees a resurgence in the fortunes of many common metals, whose prices fell in the third quarter of 2024 due to signs of slowing industrial activity in major economies, especially China. 

We look forward to MEI's two major conferences which will be held in Cape Town this year, Comminution '25 and Flotation '25. But before these I will be in Denver next month, representing MEI as a media partner, for the Annual SME Meeting, which will be special this year as it includes the Komar Kawatra Symposium, and is in association with World Gold 2025, which should be well attended as gold is one of the few metals which has not suffered in 2024.

In March Comminution '25 will have a record number of presentations as well as exhibitors. Although the technical programme is now full we are still considering abstracts for poster presentation.

We will be back in Cape Town again in November for Flotation '25, where all the exhibition booths in the main exhibition area are already sold, but we have 7 booths available outside the main conference room. We expect a very full programme here too, so please submit your abstracts by the end of May if you would like to present your work.

The farewell sundowner at Flotation '25 will be a special evening for me, as I hope to celebrate the end of my eighth decade with flotation scientists from around the world, 10 days before my 80th birthday. 

A recent sundowner at the Vineyard Hotel

And thanks to a recent paper in Elsevier's Food Chemistry journal I will be able to relax in the knowledge that I will be celebrating with antioxidant alcohol!! As is well known, one of the reasons that alcohol consumption can contribute to disease is that its metabolism by the liver results in the production of highly reactive oxygen species. Such free radicals can react with and damage cellular components such as fats, proteins and DNA, affecting vital functions of cell membranes and blood vessel walls.

Antioxidants, which neutralise highly reactive free radicals. have been found to be present in several alcoholic drinks. Researchers at the University of Silesia, Poland, tested alcoholic beverages for antioxidant activity by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR) using an EMX EPR spectrometer manufactured by Bruker, a regular sponsor of MEI's process mineralogy conferences. EPR is a technique that specifically detects species containing unpaired electrons, such as free radicals. The results clearly showed that some alcoholic beverages exhibit antioxidant properties. Red wines and brandy demonstrated the highest antioxidant activity, followed by whisky. 

So here's to a few glasses of pinotage with friends on November 20th, but in the meantime, with wine glass half full, I wish you all the very best for 2025.

Should we frown on those who enjoy an occasional glass of wine?

#Comminution25
#Flotation25
#MINEXCHANGE2025