Summary
Research Interests
Research interests in minerals processing, in particular froth flotation.
Focus on measuring and manipulating the froth structure to optimise the separation achieved.
Develop new techniques for measuring froth properties and particle motion in froths
Modelling of froth based on physical models for process design
Interests in mineral economics and the interaction between mineral processing and metal extraction.
- Flotation froth structure
- Froth stability measures
- Froth models, including particle motion
- Particle tracking in pulp and froth using PEPT (example of particle tracking - please be aware that this is a huge video file ~20MB)
- Design of flotation vessels and flowsheets
- Economics of metal recovery and waste disposal
- Financial metal hedging
Recent Measures of Esteem
- Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, 2010 (Imperial College News)
- Director: Rio Tinto Centre for Advanced Mineral Recovery.
- Plenary address: IFACMMM 2010
- Plenary Address: Procemin 2009 (Presentation)
- Inaugural Lecture Imperial College February 2008 (presentation). Note: This is a very large file (~16MB).
- 2005-10 Rio Tinto Professor with funding of two staff and further £6 million of associated industrial research support
- 2006 Keynote speaker, CFD 2006, Melbourne
- 2007 Keynote speaker, China Forum on Mineral Processing, Kunming
- 2004 FIChemE; FIMMM
Biography
- Professor, Imperial College London 2005-present
- Professor, University of Manchester 2005
- MBA, Manchester Business School, 2001
- Reader, Senior Lecturer, Lecturer UMIST 1994-2005
- Senior Lecturer and PhD University of Cape Town 1990-1994
- BSc (Eng), MSc University of the Witwatersrand 1981-1986
Positions
- Board, IMMM Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Division
- International Mineral Processing Council: also leads the Commission on Education - IMPC Minerals Industry Education and Training Book download
- Council of SAIMM
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Vega-Garcia D, Brito Parada P, Cilliers JJ, 2018, Optimising small hydrocyclone design using 3D printing and CFD simulations, Chemical Engineering Journal, Vol:350, ISSN:1385-8947, Pages:653-659
Kermode JR, Ben-Bashat L, Atrash F, et al., 2013, Macroscopic scattering of cracks initiated at single impurity atoms, Nature Communications, Vol:4, ISSN:2041-1723
Morris GDM, Neethling SJ, Cilliers JJ, 2011, A Model for the Stability of Films Stabilized by Randomly Packed Spherical Particles, Langmuir, Vol:27, ISSN:0743-7463, Pages:11475-11480
Cole KE, Waters KE, Parker DJ, et al., 2010, PEPT combined with high speed digital imaging for particle tracking in dynamic foams, Chemical Engineering Science, Vol:65, ISSN:0009-2509, Pages:1887-1890
Neethling SJ, Cilliers JJ, 2009, The entrainment factor in froth flotation: Model for particle size and other operating parameter effects, International Journal of Mineral Processing, Vol:93, ISSN:0301-7516, Pages:141-148