Reflections on two wonderful weeks

Barbara and I are now in Johannesburg airport waiting for our flight back to Cape Town, and catching up on emails. Many thanks to all of you who have commented on Flotation '11. We appreciate your views, which will be invaluable in improving the quality of MEI Conferences.



While relaxing in Madagascar I was reflecting on last week's Flotation '11, and on how privileged we are to have a life in the minerals industry, travelling the world to wonderful places and meeting new and interesting people. It would be hard to find a more beautiful conference venue than Cape Town's Vineyard Hotel and to spend 5 days in the company of old friends and the many new faces who I hope will become part of the MEI fold.

Before we return to a cold and wet winter in Cornwall, we will be spending a week in Noordhoek, just south of Cape Town. I will be responding briefly to emails when possible, but apologies once more to Minerals Engineering authors - I will be getting to grips with your submissions on my return to UK in just over a week's time.

As to Madagascar- we would highly recommend it, and below are a few photos taken during our week on this fascinating and colourful island. Hopefully they capture the various facets of Madagascar, although we saw only a tiny fraction of this huge island, the 4th largest in the world.

From the MEI Archives #6- Istanbul 1984

By the Bosphorus, Istanbul, during a weekend break from the 2-week NATO Advanced Study Institute on Minerals Processing Plant Design held in Bursa, Turkey in September 1984.

Does anyone have any memories of this wonderful 2 weeks? In the picture, I remember Cornelius Ek (centre), then Dick Burt, Gordon Agar, and far right Jacques du Cuyper.

From the MEI Archives #5 - Chingola 1973

Back almost 40 years ago this week to a photo taken at the Nchanga Rugby Club, Zambia in 1973.

Four metallurgists are captured in this picture, me, Giles Day, Phil Cudby, John Farthing and the late Jock McGregor.

Does anyone have any memories of this time?

Normal MEI service will resume as soon as possible.

Time to relax now after a very full and enjoyable week in Cape Town for Flotation '11.

Barbara and I are now in Johannesburg and tomorrow fly to Madagascar for a week's holiday before returning to Cape Town for a further week, then back to UK. I apologise to all Minerals Engineering authors - there will be a few week's delay in dealing with any submissions.

Jon and Kathryn leave for UK tomorrow, and Jon will deal with any MEI enquiries (jon@min-eng.com) until next Friday, when they leave for Chile and the Procemin '11 conference. From then until December 4th, contact Amanda (amanda@min-eng.com), who returns to UK next Thursday after a short break in Camp's Bay.

Flotation '11- a final summary

Flotation '11 was the largest ever MEI Conference, with 283 delegates, from 30 countries, attending the two symposia, on Fundamentals and Applications, over the 4 days. The conference attracted 17 corporate sponsors, and 21 companies exhibited their supplies and services.

Over 100 papers were presented, in oral and poster sessions, and the conference Proceedings is now available from MEI on CD. All authors have been invited to submit their final papers for peer-review, and those accepted will be published in a special flotation issue of Minerals Engineering in 2012.

Despite the intensity of the week, there was time for relaxation, at the welcoming reception and the conference dinner at the Gold Museum in the centre of Cape Town. We also thank AMIRA for sponsoring the cocktail reception during the Applications symposium.

A special thanks also to our two flotation consultants, Prof. Dee Bradshaw and Prof. J.-P. Franzidis.
A final thanks to all who attended Flotation '11 and we look forward to seeing you at the next conference in this series, Flotation '13, which will be held in Cape Town from November 18-21, 2013. Details will be published soon on MEI Online.

Flotation '11- Applications Symposium

J-P Franzidis, Dan Alexander and Jon Wills

Wednesday 16th November

Jon welcomed the 34 new delegates to the Applications Symposium, which opened this morning, and then introduced MEI consultant Prof. J-P. Franzidis, of the University of Cape Town, who introduced the symposium with a brief overview, pointing out the breadth of the applications (nearly a dozen different mineral commodities) and the topics to be covered.. He also drew attention to the illustrious list of delegates, which includes an Order of Australia, the Chair of the International Mineral Processing Council, the chairmen of the 2014 and 2016 IMPCs, two Gaudin medallists, as well as lots of young people (which is good for the future). Finally he highlighted that, especially in these tough financial times, with the world concerned about the environment, and energy and water, technology and innovation are what are going to get us through, and that is what this symposium offers.
The symposium keynote was given by Dr. Dan Alexander of JKTech, Australia, on the role that flotation models have in influencing and understanding the flotation behaviour of operating plants, improving the geometallurgical prediction of ore types and reducing the risk of plant design.

Morning chairmen Kari Heiskanen
and Chris Greet

Modelling and simulation were the main topics of the technical session up to the coffee break, with good papers from Canada, USA, Australia, and UK.

The influence of mineralogy on flotation performance was the subject for the remainder of the morning. This included papers on the Newcrest Telfer copper-gold operation in Australia, real-time mineralogical analysis of mixed copper ores and prediction of PGM flotation from automated SEM data.

Afternoon chairpersons Cyril O'Connor
and Kathryn Hadler

Improving flotation performance and control was the main theme of the afternoon session, which closed with 3 papers on cell innovations, one from Santa Maria University and Outotec, Chile on a new mechanism for large flotation cells, followed by Outotec, Finland on the effect of mixing mechanism developments on performance, and concluding with a paper from Maelgwyn Mineral Services on the Imhoflot pneumatic flotation machine. The day ended with the presentation by AMIRA and their hosted cocktail party.



Thursday17th November

Morning chairs R.-H.Yoon
and Elaine Wightman

There were a number of papers this morning on control of flotation, including innovative techniques such as passive acoustic emissions monitoring, 3D electrical resistance tomography, online pulp chemistry monitoring, and the use of machine vision to predict flotation performance.

A dynamic process simulator, the Outotec Virtual Experience, has been used successfully for operator training in mineral processing, and was described by authors from Outotec Finland and Sweden's Lulea University of Technology. A report on this advanced training simulator can be found on MEI Online .

With Don McKee

A surprise visitor this morning was Don McKee, former director of the JKMRC. He was impressed by the standard of papers, and remarked on how things had progressed since 1991, when he presented a keynote lecture at Minerals Engineering '91 in Singapore on the future of automatic control.

I mentioned on Sunday that Clariant would be giving away 4 copies of the SME book Froth Flotation - a Century of Innovation. Three of the lucky winners in the daily draw, Goran Adolfsson, Jacqueline Monama and Chanda Ngulube, are pictured right.





The final session of Flotation '11 dealt with plant operations, and included papers on nickel, mixed oxides-sulphides copper ores, PGE ores, and coal flotation.

The session was chaired by the MEI consultants, Dee Bradshaw and J.-P.Franzidis, who finished by summarising the conference, which was characterised by many excellent presentations by young people. It has been evident that a new age of measurement and instrumentation is dawning, aided by developments in computing,and the importance of mineralogy has been emphasised.

MEI's Amanda then closed the conference and invited delegates to Flotation '13, at the Vineyard Hotel again, in 2 years time. We then said our farewells over a glass or two of wine in the hotel gardens.