A Special Issue of the International Journal of Mineral Processing honoring Prof. Dr. sc. techn. Drs. h.c. Heinrich Schubert


A Special Issue of the International Journal of Mineral Processing honoring Prof. Dr. sc. techn. Drs. h.c. Heinrich Schubert

Rudolph, M.; Peuker, U. A.

The year 2016 marks the 90th birthday of honorable Prof. Dr. sc. techn. Drs. h.c. Heinrich Schubert, emeritus Professor of the oldest mining academy in the world, the TU Bergakademie Freiberg. Even more, it is 25 years ago, in the year of his retirement, that he was hosting the XVII IMPC 1991 in Dresden, Germany and 10 years ago that he received the IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award at the XXIII IMPC 2006 in Istanbul, Turkey.

Born January 23rd 1926 in Pirna-Jessen close to the city of Dresden he enrolled at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg after lucky circumstances keeping him from the worst harm of the Second World War where he only had to fight the very last months. In 1951 and 1952 he graduated with “Diplomingenieur Dipl.-Ing.” degrees in mineral processing and mining engineering, respectively. He continued at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg and obtained his first PhD as Dr.-Ing. with distinction in 1956 on “flotability and structure relations in cationactive flotation”. In 1971 followed his second PhD as Dr. sc. techn. on “the role of association of non-polar groups in collector adsorption” after spending time in the non-ferrous metal industry of the German Democratic Republic from 1952 until 1959 and his appointment as an associate professor in mineral processing in 1960 at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg. From 1969 until 1991 he was full professor for Mechanical Process Engineering and Mineral Processing with approximately 60 doctorates and 550 graduate students under his supervision. He spent time as visiting professor 1981 in Queensland, Australia, 1982 in Iowa, USA and 1989 in Wuhan, China. He published more than 300 papers of which unfortunately not all of them are listed in electronic databases so far. His most lasting contributions, besides his papers, are the three volume “Aufbereitung fester Stoffe” which can said to be the most important mineral processing books in the German language and furthermore the two volume “Handbuch der Mechanischen Verfahrenstechnik”, a comprehensive textbook on the basics of Mechanical Process Technologies, which he edited and authored/co-authored. He has made many contributions in different areas of mineral processing, mechanical process engineering and particle technology with the aim to describe process unit operations with fundamental micro processes. As part of such approaches he became acknowledged for his work in the unit operations that are governed by multi-phase turbulent flows, like flotation. In recent years his flotation hydrodynamics results are being cited increasingly and it seems that him introducing the turbulent mechanisms in the field of flotation has shifted the flotation paradigm a bit. Based on his finding he often points out that the essential particle-bubble collection (collision and attachment) and thus flotation of fine particles is happening in the highly turbulent zone of a flotation cell, which he refers to as “rotor storm” and thus it is important to optimize the turbulent hydrodynamics.

In various contributions of this special issue one can find the latest research results in this field. Furthermore this special issue represents contributions besides the turbulent hydrodynamics aspects of flotation by well-respected international colleagues of Prof. Schubert, all of which told their own short stories with respect to Prof. Schubert after invitation. Unfortunately, there have been two invitations for this special issue to honorable professors, co-authors and colleagues of Prof. Schubert that sadly never meant to be. Very sadly, on August 21st 2015 Prof. Thomas Neeße at age 76 passed away and shortly after on November 24th 2015 Prof. Jürgen Tomas died at age 62.

Now with 90 years of age Prof. Schubert is still keeping active and supervising a PhD student Duong Huu Hoang meeting him for discussions together with the managing guest editor Martin Rudolph every two weeks at his emeritus office of his former institute, which is now led by his successor's successor and guest editor Prof. Urs A. Peuker. The first of publications in this special issue therefore is a collaborative work including those mentioned and showing the continuation in the fundamental mineral processing research in Freiberg, Germany. This would for sure not have been possible and still existing if it was not for Prof. Schubert's outstanding career (Fig. 1).

Managing guest editor Dr.-Ing. Martin Rudolph is a graduate of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg and now head of the processing department of the HIF, the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, established in 2011. His research is on heterocoagulation processes, like flotation and their fundamentals. The HIF would probably not have been founded in Freiberg by the federal government of Germany as part of the Helmholtz foundation, if it was not for Prof. Schubert's achievements in the past.

Guest editor Prof. Dr.-Ing. Urs Alexander Peuker, a graduate of the TH Karlsruhe, former assistant professor of the TU Clausthal and since 2008 full professor and director of the Institute of Mechanical Process Engineering and Mineral Processing of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg. Thus he is the successor of Prof. Klaus Husemann who led the institute from 1991 until 2008 as the successor of Prof. Heinrich Schubert. His main research interests are in the field of particle interactions, applying AFM-techniques as well as in mechanical separation processes, especially in filtration. In 2016 Prof. Peuker started the coordination of a DFG priority program focusing on the multidimensional separation of particle below 10 μm, which will hopefully give new insights and inspiration to the processing of ultra-fines in mineral processing.

We thank Dr. Bernd Kubier of TU Bergakademie Freiberg, former head assistant of Prof. Heinrich Schubert for valuable information on Prof. Schubert's career which unfortunately is exceeding the length of an editorial.

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