New Faces on the first day of Hi-Tech Metals '18

I opened the conference this morning, welcoming 31 delegates, representing 10 countries, half of whom had attended Process Mineralogy '18.

Although a small conference, it is good to welcome five new members from UK to the MEI fold and to the general world of mineral processing. We have never had a delegate from Coventry University, and now we have four, and all from the Research Centre for Sport, Exercise & Life Sciences, an area which would, at first sight, appear to be well outside our usual scope. However, the centre has recently received a 3 year Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) to develop bioleaching capabilities for the processing of waste from printed circuit boards (PCB's), of great relevance to this, subsequent Hi-Tech Metals, and other MEI conferences. With over 2 million tons of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) discarded every year in the UK, WEEE represents 5% of all municipal solid waste worldwide; this is nearly as much as plastic packaging but with major health risks including cancer and poisoning leading to multiple impairment. WEEE also constitutes a major economic challenge with considerable quantities of precious and rare metals being exported and lost to Asia for further processing. 

The Coventry project is in collaboration with Network 2 Supplies (N2S), a company based in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, whose aim is to attain zero waste technology, and we welcome CEO Jack Gomarsall to Cape Town. Jack is the father of fellow Director, Andy, a former England rugby union player.

N2S has a unique approach to IT recycling, using a refined process of dismantling each item to reduce cross contamination and ensure every element is recycled correctly. Currently the PCB waste is sent to Asia for incineration, but pilot experiments at Coventry are aimed at transferring this knowledge to build a pilot facility at the company site. The Coventry team have very diverse backgrounds, the project leader Derek Renshaw's specialism being endocrinology. Sebastien Farnaud, who was unfortunately indisposed due to illness, and John Graves are joint academic supervisors, with backgrounds in microbiology/enzyme function and electrochemistry/PCB manufacturing respectively, and Mahsa Baniasadi, the post-doctoral KTP Associate, is a chemical engineer.

Jack, Mahsa, John and Derek

Jens Gutzmer, of the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, Germany, is also attending his first MEI Conference, and this morning presented the keynote lecture "High technology metals: facts, fiction and recycling".

With Jens Gutzmer

Jens's keynote was followed by three presentations, from Australia, Germany and Belgium on metal recycling, an area which is going to be crucial in the quest for a circular economy, and one in which mineral processing will play a very important role, albeit one of its greatest challenges.

The rest of the day dealt with the processing of rare earth minerals, with presentations from Canada, Australia, France and South Africa, after which we enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine for the first of our garden sundowners.

Twitter @barrywills

Process Mineralogy '18: the final day

An interesting day acting as a prelude to tomorrow's Hi-Tech Metals conference, with papers on the process mineralogy of rare earths, lithium, and metals such as germanium and gallium recovered as by-products of base metal mining. The day began with an excellent keynote from Frances Wall, of Camborne School of Mines, UK, on common problems - and progress towards solutions - in the process mineralogy of rare earths.

Frances Wall with Petra Dinham and Desh Chetty of South Africa

At the end of the day Megan Becker briefly summarised the conference before MEI's Amanda invited everyone back to Cape Town again in November 2020 for Process Mineralogy '20. And then out into the hotel gardens for a farewell wine function, where we were joined by some of tomorrow's Hi-Tech Metals delegates.

Thanks once again to our sponsors, chairpersons, presenters and delegates for making this such a worthwhile conference. A full technical report on Process Mineralogy '18 will be published on the blog in a couple of weeks time.

Twitter @barrywills

A great evening at Kirstenbosch with Process Mineralogy '18

Even on a dull wet day Kirstenbosch lives up to its reputation as perhaps the most beautiful of the world's botanical gardens.

Last night we dodged the heavy showers before an excellent conference dinner at Moyo restaurant in the gardens.

A reunion of former staff of Intellection, which ceased trading 10 years ago

A welcome respite from the conference atmosphere, relaxing with great people, great food and superb entertainment from the Xhosa troupe "the Rise of Mbokodo".

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Twitter @barrywills

Process Mineralogy '18 gets underway

Another beautiful day in Cape Town, and this morning MEI's Jon Wills opened the conference, and welcomed the 84 delegates from 16 countries, thanking our sponsors Zeiss, ThermoFisher Scientific, Bruker, Petrolab and our media partners International Mining and Mining Review Journal Zambia.

MEI's consultant Megan Becker was last week named as one of the top most influential women in mining of 2018.  Deservedly so, as she is passionate about minerals and teaching. Her research, which addresses mineralogy right through the value chain, prompted the South African National Research Foundation to name her a “young researcher with the potential to become a future leader in her field.”  This morning she followed Jon's introduction by speaking movingly of her great friend and mentor, Prof Dee Bradshaw, who was well known to all in the process mineralogy field, and who died in June after a long battle with cancer.

Megan (right) and Dee with me and Norman Lotter at Process Mineralogy '17

I have known Alan Butcher for many years, since he was a geology lecturer at Camborne School of Mines in the early 1990s. He then moved on to Australia and CSIRO, where he was heavily involved with QEM-SEM. During his time as Chief Scientific Officer with Intellection he was involved in the organisation of MEI's Automated Mineralogy conferences in Brisbane. After the demise of Intellection he was with FEI for a few years, and he is now Professor of Geomaterials and Applied Mineralogy at the Geological Survey of Finland. So it was good to have Alan present the first keynote lecture at the conference "When Scientists and Engineers Talk – Lessons from the Oil Industry and Applications to Mining".

Alan with MEI consultant Megan Becker

 Following Alan's keynote there were 14 high class presentations today from Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, South Africa and UK, but also plenty of time in the long lunch and coffee breaks to meet the exhibitors, view the posters and to welcome new members to the MEI club. This included 5 researchers from the Botswana International University of Science and Technology, attending and presenting papers at an MEI Conference for the first time.

Our Botswanan delegates

First lunch break in the exhibition area

After a long day it was good to enjoy the evening sunshine for the first of our sundowners in the hotel gardens.

Twitter @barrywills

Process Mineralogy '18 welcome reception follows from Zeiss Workshop

A beautiful Sunday morning in Cape Town, with preparations for Process Mineralogy '18 in full swing.

At lunchtime I called in to see the start of the pre-conference workshop organised by ZEISS, where new developments in automated mineral analysis were discussed by leading players in the automated mineralogy field.  

Zeiss workshop delegates and presenters

Process Mineralogy '18 sponsor ZEISS will be launching its largest new release of its Mineralogic software tomorrow. This is the 7th installment of the Mineralogic software since the software was brought to market in July 2014 and introduces a significant advancement in both features and productivity.  Mineralogic software  combines a scanning electron microscope with one or more EDS detectors and a mineral analysis engine – all controlled and operated from a single user interface. It can be used with all standard sample types, including stubs, geological slides and core cuttings, and conventional or field emission systems. 

The workshop ended late afternoon to coincide with the start of Process Mineralogy '18, a welcoming wine reception in the conference exhibition area.

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There are two Cornish companies, Petrolab and Grinding Solutions Ltd, exhibiting in adjacent booths, so nice to get a photo of all the delegates with a Cornish connection, mainly via the Camborne School of Mines.

I also enjoyed meeting Borbor Gibson, who I highlighted on the blog last year. Borbor is a graduate of the University of Liberia and is now in his first year of a Masters degree at the University of Cape Town.

A great start to the conference and all looking good for tomorrow.

Twitter @barrywills

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