The inaugral Extraction 18 conference was held in Ottawa, Ontario, from the 26th to the 29th August 2018.  It was jointly organised by MetSoc, the SME and the CIM, and was attended by approximately 700 delegates from many parts of the world. We attended the sulphide flotation theme, which was organised by Dr. Ronel Kappes, Newmont, and Mr. Tarun Bhambhani, Solvay.  The flotation theme was kindly sponsored by Newmont.  The other themes were in hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy,

This technical theme showed some of the best flotation papers that we have seen in North America for many years.  The organisers and authors are to be congratulated on this splendid outcome.

Dr. Norman Lotter presented two papers in this session with co-authors Dr. Tim Napier-Munn and the late Dee Bradshaw.  These were:

“The Value in Incremental Perfomance Gains in Concentrators – How to Secure and Quantify Small Gains” and “The Formulation and use of Mixed Collectors in Sulphide Flotation – Valuable Performance Gains”.  Very sadly, the latter was the very last paper that I will write with Dee, since she very unfortunately lost her battle with cancer in June 2018.

Some of the other papers were:

“Optimizing Cu/Mo Float Circuits with Process Mineralogy Tools”, by Dr. Wolfgang Baum, Ore and Plant Mineralogy

Molybdenite Polytypism and its Implications for Processing and Recovery” by Craig McLung, Kennecott

“On-Line Mineral Phase Analysis in Copper Flotation by Magnetic Resonance” by Tom Strombotne, Thermo Fisher Scientific

“Unlocking the Value of Chemicals in Mineral Processing”, by Dr. Nag Nagaraj, Solvay

In all, a high-value conference with excellent technical quality and very good networking opportunities.