How did you become a metallurgist?

[Chris Shaw Feral Metallurgist]

As a 40 yo mature-age student and ex-plant operator, I presented myself to Sam Swaminathan, metallurgical guru of the Bendigo College of Advanced Education. Sam wasted no time in beating me around the head with Mineral Processing Technology (4th ed), by a certain B A Wills (ring any bells?), which almost resulted in my premature demise.

Bereft of one original thought and threatened by the prospect of Gy's 3D math, I resorted to the only talent that nature had seen fit to endow me with - plagiarism.

Here then is one of my earliest contributions to the black art of extractive metallurgy. Sad to say, it did not butter any fish with Sam:


The Rubaiyat of Fathi Habashi.

Awake! For ball mill in the dead of night
Has ground the ore which sets the gold to flight.
And lo! The metallugist from the East
Has optimised recovery by break of light.

Dreaming when dawn's left hand was in the sky,
I heard a voice within the Office cry,
"Awake my little ones and clean the plant.
The managing director is nigh."

The moving pulp gets leached and having dwelt,
Moves on. Not all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to yield another gram,
Nor all thy tears return it from the tailing dam.

What of the loaded carbon spilt upon the ground
Ignored by the operator on his nocturnal round?
Even as management complains,
He'll win the gram or so of gold that it contains.

And at week's end when all assays are writ,
Carbon profile, tonnage (give or take a bit),
Why is it the numbers seldom match
The bar of gold that they're supposed to fit?

Ah, take my CN soaked body from which the life was press'd
And bury me in a mullock heap facing West
So even a Superintendent passing by, might pause
And say, "He tried his best."


Question: How did you become a metallurgist?

[Barry Wills]

First of all Chris, thanks for the subtle plug for my book- I hope that future generations of students are “encouraged” into the minerals industry by this increasingly weighty tome!!

The meaning of the term ‘metallurgist’ is shrouded with confusion, and is dependent on which continent you are sitting.

I left Leeds University in 1969 with a degree and PhD in metallurgy. In the UK a metallurgist is an expert on metals, alloys, steels etc. On graduating I was offered various positions in the Sheffield steel industry, but was attracted by the offer, by Anglo American, of the job of assistant metallurgist on the Zambian Copperbelt, at over 3 times the salary obtainable in UK!

On arrival, I found that metallurgist meant a completely different thing in Africa, and I was introduced, reluctantly at first, to the new concepts of comminution, flotation, thickening etc. Slowly, I became a ‘mineral processor’ or minerals engineer as I prefer to call it.

In retrospect the move to Zambia was the best thing I ever did, as it introduced me to a small, closely knit community of interesting, down to earth (bit of a pun there) people, and it is these people that I know will prevent me ever retirig from this profession.

Those 30-odd years ago, minerals engineers were either mineral processors (comminution and physical processes) or extractive metallurgists (chemical methods). A mineral processor could see the broad picture in a mill- if, for instance, there was a problem with flotation recovery, he might suspect that the grinding circuit was at fault rather than, say, the reagents being used.

Nowadays specialisation is the thing, and mineral processors have become specialist flotation scientists, comminution engineers etc, whereas extractive metallurgists have become specialist hydrometallurgists, pyrometallurgists, electrometallurgists and biohydrometallurgists.

The ability to view the general picture maybe therefore diminishing, and I have noticed that many minerals engineering graduates now stay on at University to teach their specialist fields with little or no industrial experience.

So I would certainly welcome people’s views on what Chris has started- how did I become a metallurgist (or minerals engineer), and why. Also I would like to have views on specialisation. Is this a good or a bad thing? Maybe it is essential with increasingly complex technology.

Sorry if this is a bit disjointed- I am writing very hurriedly in an internet cafe in a litlle town called Fish Hoek in South Africa.

[Young Metallurgist]

I would prefer to remain anonymous, as I graduated only a few years ago, and I am just developing my career as a minerals engineer.

I graduated from a well known and respected chemical engineering department, with a minerals processing option, and agree with Dr. Wills’ comments on some lecturers having very little industrial experience, and being over-specialised.

We were tought many very complex subjects, such as simulation, computational fluid dynamics etc, much of which was well over our heads. It wasapparent that the lecturers had never experienced the real world, many of them having taken up teaching posts after post-graduate research.

Now that I am at the sharp end, working on base metal concentrators, I am now beginning to see the ‘full picture’ and that it is dangerous to compartmentalise the various areas in a flowsheet- crushing, grinding, flotation etc, as each is influenced by the performance of the others.

The most important ‘discipline’ and one which was hardly touched on at University, is the need to examine plant products and tailings under the microscope. A thorough knowledge and understanding of ore mineralogy can solve most of the problems on a processing plant.

[scarcha]

i become a metallurgist because i know about the speciality... my uncle is a Codelco's Metallurgist (Civil Eng.). He works for 40 years un Caletones (El Teniente)... Since i was a little boy i used to visit Coya (a mine camp in the Andes Mountain) and everytime i heard about El Teniente.
Well, i have to decide waht i'm going to do in University...
i love the mountains... the Mine Engineering was attractiv...but after visiting the operations in Caletones i decide to be Metallurgist...
but (for my uncle's fury) i don't like the Pyrometallurgy... i chose the minerals conminution and concentration...
and..that's my history.