Several members of our team attended the Physical Separation ’17 conference organised by MEI in nearby Falmouth, and we sponsored the evening drinks at award-winning real ale pub ‘The Front’. The conference was very well-attended, with some big names from the industry turning up, and many interesting new concepts were presented. Conference reports can be found here on MEI’s blog.
The GSL Team with Barry Wills, MEI, at the Physical Separation ’17 Sundowner in Falmouth. Image courtesy of Barry Wills.
Nick Wilshaw, GSL Director, part of the CEEC member reunion at the Physcial Separation ’17 Sundowner. Image courtesy of Barry Wills.
On the back of the conference, we have had several exciting visits at GSL week. On Wednesday we were visited by Bill Weldon of Australian company Mineral Technologies Pty Lt. GSL and Mineral Technologies are finalising an agreement which will see us install five of their spiral separators to provide gravity separation capabilities. The following industrial-sized spirals are due to be installed at our facilities in this summer:
- A HG10 spiral for separation of high grade feeds with 20 – 90% heavy mineral
- An MG6.3 and slightly taller MG4 spirals for medium grade separations (up to 40% heavy mineral)
- An FM1 spiral for treatment of fine heavy minerals (30 – 150µm)
- An LD spiral for treating lower density materials such as coal
We have also recently expanded our hydrocyclone offering, we now have 1cm, 1”, 2”, 3” and 5” hydrocyclones available with a range of shapes (stub and conventional), spigots and vortex finders, enabling us to do hydrocylcone test work in the 1 – 70µm range. By providing flexible desliming capabilities, the hydrocyclone/spiral separator combination provides an effective solution for gravity separation projects.
Also visiting on Wednesday was Jens Bergmann of TOMRA, who provide a range of automated sorting solutions for the mining and recycling industry. At GSL, we see automated sorting as an area of mineral processing with great potential for growth, which is an opinion shared by many in our industry judging by preliminary results from our innovation survey (more on this to follow soon). Sorting technology is developing rapidly compared to other fields of processing technology, and it was interesting to hear about the latest developments in this field from Jens such as the ‘Lightsabre’ laser sorting technology.
On Thursday Steve Flatman and Mike Battersby of Maelgwyn Mineral Services visited to discuss the installation of a 15kW stirred ceramic media mill as well as the commissioning of the MMS Aachen Reactor , both of these technologies will be available for test work in our expanded laboratory facilities in the next few months.
Steve Flatman & Mike Battersby of Maelgwyn Mineral Services with Nick Wilshaw, GSL Director
Bill Weldon of Minerals Technology, Jens-Michael Bergmann of @TOMRAMining and Alan Matthews at the GSL offices
