Carbon Capture and Storage- possible perils

One of the themes of MEI's Climate Change and the Minerals Industry '11 conference is the development of new technology, such as carbon capture and storage.

This all looked so promising - tidy carbon dioxide away underground and forget about it. But even as the US's first large-scale sequestration operation is getting off the ground at the Mountaineer plant in West Virginia , geophysicists are concerned that burying the carbon could trigger earthquakes and tsunamis, according to an article in New Scientist.

The full story can be found on MEI Online.

Growing International Audience for Flotation ‘09

You can now take a look at the current delegate list for Flotation ’09, which will be held in the beautiful Vineyard Hotel, Cape Town, in November. We will be updating this list every Friday until the beginning of the conference.

If you would like to register for the event, we advise that you do so as soon as possible, and reserve your accommodation, as Cape Town is very busy in the spring. We have only one 3m x 2m exhibition booth available for rental at present, so if you wish to exhibit your products or services you should also register without delay.

The current programme is also available for viewing.

What is an industrial mineral?

We have received a number of abstracts for Processing of Industrial Minerals '10, which we have had to reject, as the authors do not seem to know what defines an industrial mineral.

A good definition can be found in A Dictionary of Earth Sciences (1999):

An industrial mineral is any earth material of economic importance, excluding metal ores and fuels; e.g. barite, fluorite and china clay (kaolin).

In general industrial minerals are extracted from non-metallic ores, although some ores can produce an industrial mineral or a metal product. For instance chromite ores are the source of metallic chromium, or can be concentrated to produce chromite, an industrial mineral used for refractory bricks.

The conference in Istanbul is therefore concerned with the processing of any industrial mineral. The scope of this conference also includes coal preparation, although coal is not classified as a mineral.

Wishing you a speedy recovery, Guven

Further to yesterday's posting, Guven Onal has emailed to let me know that he has been in hospital in the USA for the past month, after suffering a heart attack. He is now back home, resting, in Turkey.

We all wish you a very speedy recovery Guven.

Conference Memories, IMPS '86, Izmir

The first of the biennial Turkish International Mineral Processing Symposia was held in Izmir in September 1986, and I had the honour of presenting the first paper on research needs in mineral processing.

My session chairman was Prof. Guven Onal (2nd right in photo) of Istanbul Technical University. Guven is the consultant to MEI's Processing of Industrial Minerals '10 conference, to be held in Istanbul in February.

The IMPS events have proved to be successful enjoyable affairs, and I also attended the Antalya conference in October 1992, Jon representing MEI in Antalya last year.

Next year's event will be held in Cappadocia, and MEI is a media sponsor, so I look forward to renewing acquaintances at this beautiful location.

Microwave Technology Reviewed

The potential of microwave technology, which exploits the differing thermal dielectric properties of minerals to enhance grain boundary fracture, has been understood for more than 20 years, but has not been considered commercially viable until recently because of the large amount of energy required.

However recent developments, such as pulsed microwave technology may overcome this.

As microwave technology is aimed at improving mineral liberation, its major use will probably be in comminution, and will bring real advantages to the processing of ores, such as diamonds, where the valuable mineral needs to be recovered intact.

However there are many other aspects of mineral processing and extractive metallurgy where the use of microwaves will have importance, and two good reviews by Chris Pickles have recently been published in Minerals Engineering (Volume 22 Issue 13, 2009). The first paper reviews the fundamentals, and the other potential applications.

MEI held its first inaugural microwave technology conference last year in Cape Town, and we would be interested in hearing from anyone who might be interested in presenting work, should we decide to proceed with a 2nd event in the next year or so.