Flotation '09- Day 2

After a very intensive morning session, chaired by Norman Lotter and Greg Hope, delegates enjoyed one of the Vineyard's excellent lunches, before reconvening for the short afternoon session which completed the fundamentals symposium. It was good to hear the feedback that the quality of presentations had been of a very high level.

Minerals Engineering News

I had a meeting this morning with Dean Eastbury, Elsevier Publishing Manager for Minerals Engineering. He highlighted the continuing progress of the journal; in 2008 430 papers were submitted, of which 60% were rejected through the peer-review process. Once again we stress to authors that papers for an archival journal such as Minerals Engineering must be innovative and of generic interest (ie not specific to a certain ore-body or material).

Electronic publishing continues to increase in importance, ScienceDirect dominating the publishing market. In 2008 a staggering +303,000 articles were downloaded from Minerals Engineering issues.

Relaxing at the end of Day 1

After a long and successful first day at Flotation '09, it was good to have respite from the torrential rain of the past few days and to relax with some of the delegates in the very cold water of the hotel pool, which is back in operation again.

Flotation '09 at full capacity

With 190 delegates and 13 exhibitors, the Vineyard facilities are at full capacity.

Six of the conference delegates have attended all this century's major flotation conferences, Flotation 2000 in Adelaide, Flotation '03 in Helsinki, Centenary of Flotation in 2005 in Brisbane, and Flotation '07 in Cape Town. Pictured below, left to right are Prof. Graeme Jameson (Newcastle University, Australia), Dr. Dan Alexander (JKTech, Australia), Prof. Jim Finch (McGill University, Canada), Prof. Anonio Peres (UFMG, Brazil), Dr. Stephen Neethling (Imperial College, UK) and Prof. Dee Bradshaw (JKMRC, Australia).

Flotation '09 off to a good start

This morning was the first time that I have not opened an MEI Conference. The mantle was passed to Jon today who welcomed our delegates from 20 countries and our 12 sponsors. Over the next four days over 185 delegates will attend and discuss 78 presentations, in both oral and poster sessions.

The 4-day conference contains two 2-day symposia, the first dealing with the fundamental physics and chemistry of flotation, the second on applications and plant practice.

Jon introduced Prof. Dee Bradshaw, our consultant on fundamentals, who remarked that, although flotation is over 100 years old, we are still pondering its mysteries, and each flotation conference has been a defining process in advancing our knowledge of this complex process, with state of the art publications in Minerals Engineering. Peer review is critical to the advancement of knowledge and Dee called for voluntereers from the audience to aid in the review of conference papers.

Dee introduced Prof. Cyril O'Connor, the first keynote speaker, and well known to everyone in the flotation field. He first lectured to Dee when she was a teenager, and she is now a grandmother!

Cyril's keynote highlighted the complexity of flotation showing that the chemical reactions are still not fully understood, and are influenced by many factors.

I would like to invite all conference delegates, who will be following the blog postings over the next few days, to submit their own comments on the conference.

Flotation ’09. Registration and wine reception

Despite the awful weather, over 80 delegates registered this evening at the informal wine reception.

In the picture below, I am with MEI Consultant Prof. J-P Franzidis, Sergio Vianna from the JKMRC and tomorrow’s keynote speaker, Prof. Cyril O’Connor.