The Most Important Figures in Flotation

Although entitled “Innovations in Flotation”, Prof. Nelson focused on mechanical Flotation cells and Flotation machine , and the trend to ever larger machines. This caused some concern with some members of the large audience, who were expecting opinions on column and Jameson Cells, and a representative from CSIRO questioned whether this focus on mechanical cell size, an area driven by operators and equipment manufacturers, undermined the huge role that research institutions and academia have played in the development of reagents and our understanding of the science of flotation.

Following the closing of Metplant 11, I attended an excellent lecture yesterday evening given by Prof. Michael Nelson, department chair in mining engineering at the University of Utah, USA.

This was the inaugural lecture in what will become a series of G.D. Delprat Memorial Flotation Lectures, instigated by Prof. Alban Lynch, the first Director of Australia”s JKMRC.

Profs. Nelson and Lynch are co-authors of the AusIMM book The History of Flotation, along with Dr. Greg Harbort of AMEC Minpro. The royalties from the book partially funded the lecture, which was also sponsored by FLSmidth and Outotec.

Accepting this, and explaining that a short lecture such as this must concentrate on a specific area, Michael presented a fascinating history of how cells have developed since their first use on zinc tailings at Broken Hill in 1905, pioneered by G.D. Delprat, one of the most unrecognised, yet important figures in flotation.