3rd UQ-UCT-CSU Flotation Forum

Professor Yongjun Peng from the University of Queensland summed up the day well in his closing remark:

"Today 16 researchers from university of Queensland in Australian, University of Cape Town In South Africa and Central South University in China presented research work on a number of flotation aspects including grinding chemistry, flotation chemistry, the design of flotation reagents and the management of tailings. These presentations address the emerging challenges confronting the mining industry when low quality ores are processed and low quality water is used.

 Just now many people commented that these presentations demonstrated very high quality of research with an excellent combination of fundamental  understanding and industry practice. In fact, these three universities are highly ranked in minerals Engineering worldwide and I am confident that the research presented today is world class.

As the founder of this forum, I am very pleased to see that so many students are involved and present here in such a professional manner. While some of you may still worry your future career as I did 20 years ago as a PhD student, here I want to ensure you that you will definitely have a brilliant career either working in the industry or as an academic given such high quality work you have been doing.

 It is pleasing to see Central South University becoming a new member of this forum. Clearly researchers from Central South University added a great value today especially in terms of reagent design. I hope that Central South University will continue to be part of the family.

 It is interesting to see that some researchers who represented University of Cape Town several years ago now represent university of Queensland, and some researchers who represented university of Queensland are now working in Central South University. This demonstrates the great impact of the forum on knowledge sharing and the exchange of expertise. I believe this forum will strengthen the established relationship among these three universities and lead to more international collaborations.

 Other universities have also expressed to join the forum. We will review the objectives of the forum and justify whether the involvement of more universities can add more values.

 Finally let me thank Associate Professor Kirsten Corin for your stewardship of our forum and for hard work to liaison with three universities to put the program together. I would also like to thank the Centre for Minerals Research, University of Cape Town for providing such a good venue for us to communicate our research."