The Cape Town IMPC- a view from the exhibition

IMPC 2026 was hosted by the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) and chaired by Professor Aubrey Mainza of the University of Cape Town. Mining is of great importance to Africa in general, and particularly to Southern Africa. Africa accounts for a major portion of the world's mineral reserves and more than half of gold, platinum group metals, cobalt and diamonds. Southern Africa produces over two-thirds of Africa's mineral exports by value. This was the first IMPC in Africa since the first memorable event in Cape Town in 2003.

The 850 delegates from 45 countries was a little less than the +1000 predicted, due in part by an unfortunate clash with the AusIMM's Mill Operators' Conference, running at exactly the same time in Brisbane, and many of the Chinese representatives being refused visas. 

MEI was a media partner and for the first time since the IMPC in Quebec in 2016 we had an exhibition booth.  We were represented by Amanda, Will and me and what follows is not a formal report on the congress and its 370 presentations and 70 posters, but rather a view from an exhibitor's perspective, our own personal experiences of the week. It is essentially a pictorial record of our encounters during the week, and I hope that the photos below will reflect the overall atmosphere of the event. I’ve added captions only to photos where I could identify all the faces, so I apologise if your name isn’t included. There is a full album of photos available for viewing and please feel free to download any for your personal use. 

Sunday 18th October

The congress got underway on Sunday evening with an excellent welcome reception among the 50 booths in the exhibition area (see posting of 18th October).

Monday 19th October

After a lovely welcome from the South African Youth Choir, day 1 opened with brief remarks from Prof. Mainza and the IMPC President Ralph Holmes. A plenary address by Craig Miller, CEO of Valterra Platinum, then set the scene for the day's discussions on the future of mineral processing and the need for innovation, operational excellence and sustainable resource utilisation. There were 10 parallel technical sessions, showcasing research and industry advances across a broad range of mineral processing topics and highlighting opportunities to improve efficiency, recovery and performance across the value chain.

The morning and afternoon breaks and the lunch break, were in the exhibition area, giving delegates the opportunity to mingle with exhibitors and enjoy the fine food on offer. We found it a perfect setting to chat with delegates and to introduce Amanda's son and my grandson, Will, to a wider mineral processing audience.

Apart from MEI, there are a number of families working together in mineral processing. Father and son Joe and Travis Felix are with CiDRA, a regular sponsor of MEI's comminution and flotation conferences, and Will called in to see them, with their colleague Rodrigo Bruna. Joe is a regional sales representative and Travis an applications engineer.

Will with Joe, Rodrigo and Travis

It was also nice to meet another mineral processing family, Zhiyong Yang of Florrea Chemicals, China, who was with with his son and fiancée, also with Florrea. Zhiyong is a senior company representative with executive and commercial responsibilities. He is a familiar face, having  represented Florrea in the international mineral processing industry for many years.

Will also paused for a chat in the Scientific and Precision Solutions (SPS) booth with Aaukje Benedictus of Thermo Fisher Scientific and Mohammed Kola of SPS who work together on automated mineralogy. Aaukje was a familiar face at our Automated Mineralogy conferences in Brisbane almost 20 years ago.

In the booth adjacent to ours, former IMPC President Cyril O'Connor was talking to Arkady Senchenko and colleagues, from TOMS. a Russian engineering and research company which provides services including ore testing, mineral separation, metallurgy, geological consulting, and the design and construction of mineral processing plants. Prior to Covid, TOMS was a regular sponsor of MEI's comminution conferences, and Arkady was a familiar face. We are pleased that he has agreed to sponsor Comminution '27 and that we will see him in Cape Town again in April.

Cyril O'Connor (centre) and Arkady (2nd right)

It was good to catch up with the MetSoP team, sponsors of Flotation '27.

Mintek always has a large group at MEI conferences, and it was also good to see many of their regulars at their IMPC booth.

Also good to catch up with the team from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Below are Carmen Jensen, Marek Pawlik, Ali Madiseh, Bern Klein and Maria Holuszko.

Overall, a great first day at the IMPC, with the exhibition drawing people in and it was good to meet many new contacts in our booth. 

Tuesday 20th October

Prior to the day's parallel sessions Prof. Cyril O'Connor, of the University of Cape Town and a past President of the IMPC, delivered a plenary lecture "The Application of Novel Scientific Techniques in Developing Our Understanding of the fundamental processes occurring during flotation".

Later I congratulated Cyril on his recent award of a 2026 Chinese Government Friendship Award. The Chinese Government Friendship Award is an honour established by the Chinese government to recognise foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to China's modernisation efforts and to the promotion of exchanges and cooperation between China and other countries.

Back at our booth it was great to welcome the delegation from the Hacettepe University, Türkiye, led by Dr. Zafir Ekmekçi. The excellent flotation research department, led by Zafir, missed out on Flotation '25 as they were committed financially to the IMPC in Washington, but we look forward to seeing them again next year at Flotation '27.

Metso has a huge booth and a massive delegation from offices around the world. They are the only company which has committed to sponsoring all four of MEI's conferences in 2027 (posting of 12th October).

BME are sponsoring Hydrometallurgy '27 and Flotation '27 next year (posting of 21st September) and Amanda dropped by their booth, which they shared with Innospec.  BME Metallurgy and Innospec maintain a strategic technical partnership aimed at delivering advanced chemical and mineral processing solutions to the South African and broader African mining industries.

A welcome break for one of the IMPC's excellent lunches

After the lunch break there was a well attended poster session:

On the way back to our booth we caught up with activity in other booths. It was particularly good to see Frank Crundwell of CM Solutions, South Africa, our advisor and a keynote speaker at Hydrometallurgy '27.

Frank Crundwell busy in the CM Solutions booth

At the MD Consultants booth Mike Daniel and his team were in conversation with Adam Johnston of Cancha, Peru. Cancha is used by geologists, miners, metallurgists and geometallurgists to accurately, efficiently and transparently project metallurgical performance for mineral resources, the geometallurgy software bridging the gap between orebody knowledge and comminution simulators. 

Adam Johnston with Mike Daniel and his team

The Global Comminution Collaborative is an international, independent, non-profit organisation based in Germany that brings together leading researchers, universities and industry experts to improve comminution in the mining and minerals processing industry. The GCC focuses on developing more efficient and sustainable methods through research, modelling, simulation, training and collaboration between experts worldwide. Its main objectives are to reduce energy and water consumption, minimise environmental impacts, improve mineral recovery and optimise processing plant performance. The organisation also supports knowledge sharing through online seminars, technical workshops and educational resources, helping researchers and mining professionals develop innovative solutions to industry challenges. We will no doubt see them in force, as usual, at Comminution '27.

Boaz Friedland is Technical Director at Energy and Densification Systems (EDS). The South African company was formed in 2005 and their Multishaft Mill is designed and produced in South Africa.  The milling action combines a number of processes to provide an output product to match various specifications. These processes are crushing, milling, densifying, blending and attrition. I called in to talk to Boaz and his colleague.

And then back to our booth where we spent the rest of the afternoon talking to visitors.

And after a long day it was great to relax and unwind at the cultural evening in the Convention Centre, an African Street Party with traditional foods, music and street dancing. A superb evening brilliantly organised.

Wednesday 21st October

Prior to splitting into parallel sessions, the morning plenary "Reimagining Mineral Processing: From Recovery to Value Creation" was given by Pedro Porto, of Vale S.A., Brazil.

Opposite us in the exhibition area was the booth of the well known international company Eriez, headquartered in the USA and a regular sponsor of MEI's flotation conferences. Few people will be aware that Eriez is a family business, being founded in 1942 by O.F. Merwin, and even fewer would be aware that one of its team, Richard Merwin, chairman of the board, is the grandson of the founder. Richard is talking to delegates in the photo below. 

Two other companies which regularly sponsor the flotation series are GoldOre and BGRIMM.

GoldOre is a South African mining technology company founded in 2012 by Adrian Singh. Its main innovation is the MACH Reactor, a device designed to improve mineral processing via hydrodynamic cavitation. Adrian (right) was talking to Mukund Vasudevan of Tessenderlo Kerley, an established agricultural and industrial chemicals business, based in the USA and particularly known for sulfur-based fertilizers and technologies used in mining.

BGRIMM, the Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy is a Chinese group providing mining research, engineering, equipment and mineral-processing technologies. It also works with Roytec Global in Southern Africa. Roytec provides local support, including equipment selection, commissioning, servicing and spare parts for BGRIMM flotation systems. At Flotation '25, BGRIMM introduced its 800 m³ Super-Large Flotation Machine, the world’s largest flotation cell, installed at the Pulang Copper Mine, one of China’s most advanced underground mining operations.

During the lunch break there was a brief update on the activities of the IMPC Council. Of particular note is that the next IMPC will be held in Perth, Australia, from October 16-19 2028, and not in Melbourne as previously announced.  The Council was aware of the potential clash of the IMPC with MillOps in October 2028, with MillOps in Perth and the proposed IMPC in Melbourne.  Clearly each event would draw delegates away from the other, even if they were some weeks apart in October.  So the plan is to run the two events in the same week in the same city, thereby allowing the combined delegates to pick and choose which sessions to attend. Consequently, the dates for MillOps are 16-18 October 2028 and IMPC 16-19 October 2028 at the Perth Convention Centre.

Following the 2028 event the IMPCs will be held every three years, with 2031 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and 2034 in Changsha, China.

Also of interest is that from immediate effect the new IMPC Council President is Prof. Aubrey Mainza, of the University of Cape Town, and the Vice-President Dr. Pablo Brito-Parada of Imperial College, UK. This is good news for MEI, as Aubrey is consultant to the comminution series of conferences and Pablo is editor-in-chief of Minerals Engineering and edits the special MEI conference issues of the journal.

With Paul Morgan

Following the update I bumped into one of my old Camborne students, Paul Morgan, who graduated in mineral processing in 1985 and I then had a long chat with Hayley and Keith Armstong of SysCAD, South Africa, who I first met at the SME Annual Meeting in Denver in 2017. They are very interested in getting involved with Hydrometallurgy '27 and AI in Mineral Processing '27 next June. SysCAD is widely used in all mineral processing industries, its Steady State and Dynamic process simulation software being used throughout the life cycle of a project by consultants, engineering companies and owner operators. More than $300 billion worth of operating plants worldwide have been designed, managed, optimised and operated using SysCAD. It is also used in universities and institutions for teaching and research.

So, another interesting and busy day in the exhibition area ended, but later we were back in the Convention Centre for the IMPC Banquet, the highlight of the congress, where the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award, Prof. Zhenghe Xu (posting of 22nd October) and the Distinguished Service Award, Prof. Robin Batterham (posting of 22nd October), and the ten winners of the Young Author Awards were celebrated.  Another very well organised event, with great food, wine and company.

Megan Becker, Cyril O'Connor, Aubrey Mainza, Zhenghe Xu, Robin Batterham and Ralph Holmes

Young Person's Awards winners

Thursday 22nd October

The final day began with a plenary Lifetime Achievement Award lecture from last night's award winner Zhenghe Xu, "Colloidal Phenomena: A Bridge of Nano Science to Production of Heavy Oil from Alberta Oil Sands", after which parallel sessions took us to the lunch break.

Paterson & Cooke are first time sponsors of next year's Hydydrometallurgy '27 and Flotation '27, and Will spent some time talking to their team in their booth.

Will also called in to talk to George Tabi, of Australian company Scantech International, a mining and industrial measurement technology company which develops real-time material analysers used on conveyor belts, to measure the composition of bulk materials.  

Molycop is a sponsor of Comminution '27 and it was good to see their team. Molycop is a global industrial company specialising in products, technology and services for the mining and mineral processing industries and is best known for manufacturing steel grinding balls.

CemenTürk is a specialist Turkish trade magazine focused primarily on the cement and ready-mixed concrete industries, with additional coverage of mining, mineral processing, industrial technology and raw materials. It publishes content in both Turkish and English and serves industry professionals, companies and academics. Amanda called in to talk to their representative Nurhan Gurel.

Although the final day, there was still a lot of activity in the exhibition area, and plenty of time to talk to people in and around our booth.

It was particularly good to catch up with MEI Conferences regular Stephen Neethling, of Imperial College, London and Sue Harrison of the University of Queensland. Sue has agreed in principle to act as a consultant to our biomining conferences, which we hope to reinstate in 2029.

Sue delivered the final presentation after lunch, a plenary lecture "Bio-based processes for metal extraction and recovery from diverse resources: challenges and opportunities". This was followed by closing remarks from IMPC Council members and a farewell cocktail function, where we caught up with a few more delegates.

I would like the views of others on the IMPC,  but from an MEI perspective this has been one of the most productive and enjoyable IMPCs for many years. Being essentially confined to the vicinity of our booth proved to be very productive, as the coffee and lunch breaks were in the exhibit area allowing delegates to mingle with the exhibitors and giving us the opportunity of interacting with many of the delegates. 

Prof. Aubrey Mainza and his organising committee and the SAIMM deserve our congratulations on an event which has restored confidence in the IMPCs. We now look forward to October 2028 and the next event in Perth.

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