Special Edition of Hydrometallurgy dedicated to Mike Slater

摘要

This Special Edition of Hydrometallurgy is dedicated to Mike Slater. Mike was one of the Editors-m-Chief of the Journal from 1981 to 2003. The Journal started in 1975, under Gordon Ritcey and Neville Rice but with the expanding interest of the Journal, Mike Slater took over from Neville in 1981. Gordon Ritcey remained as founding editor until 1993 when Charles Cooper assumed his role to work with Mike. Under Mike's leadership, the Journal's impact factor has grown which is a measure of the Journal's quality and relevance. It has continued to be the journal of choice for researchers and practitioners of hydrometallurgy to publish their work. Mike has a broad range of research interests which are reflected to some extent in the contributions in this Special Edition. His work encompassed fundamental studies on mass transfer and diffusion in solvent extraction systems and in particular within individual droplets. He also studied the novel use of ion exchange and the application of a range of other separation techniques linked to process development. Mike started his research career with particular interests in continuous ion exchange, and worked with Gordon Ritcey at CANMET in the early 1970s to develop the CANMET Continuous Ion Exchange (CIX) unit which was installed underground at one of Eldorado Nuclear Mines to recover uranium from mine water. Yellow cake precipitate was brought to the surface in this complete operation. The pilot plant ran for several months at the 1200-ft level, and sufficient data were obtained to provide scale-up and economics. Mike was also interested in environmental aspects of hydrometallurgy, and whilst at CANMET he used the CIX fluidized bed column to treat effluents from nickel and uranium operations to produce acceptable discharge liquors and marketable by-products.