The keynote lecture, "The scientific legacy of Joseph Kitchener- its impact in flotation and colloid science" was presented by Emeritus Laureate Professor John Ralston of the University of South Australia, Australia.

John is a Physical and Colloid Chemist with complementary training in metallurgy, whose research interests embrace various aspects of interfacial science and engineering. In 1994, the Ian Wark Research Institute (1994 to 2015) was founded at the University of South Australia, with John as its Director, until his retirement in 2012.John’s research deals with three main themes - how bubbles contact particles; why things stick together and how liquids spread over surfaces. The problems addressed cross the boundaries from pure physical chemistry to materials science to chemical and minerals engineering, with many connections with, and knowledge transfer to, national and international industry. John has received numerous awards and honours over the years. These include the Chemeca Medal in 2006 [ Australia's highest honour in Chemical Engineering], the ATSE Clunies Ross Lifetime Contribution Award in 2009 and the Staudinger Durrer Lecture and Medal in 2012 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, for influential contributions to the fields of colloid and surface science. In 2008 John was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. In 2007 John was awarded South Australian of the Year, the first scientist to be so honoured, as well as South Australian Scientist of the Year. Apart from mentoring research teams at UniSA, a number of his present activities, as a "roving ambassador" for the University of South Australia, include strong interactions with universities, companies and  research institutes internationally. John has an h-index of 60. His publications have been cited more than 12000 times.

The keynote lecture, "Canadian Achievements in Flotation Technology : A Retrospective" was presented by Adjunct Professor Jan Nesset of McGill University, Canada.

Jan obtained his Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. degrees in metallurgical and materials engineering from McGill University (Canada), specializing in mineral processing. He spent 24 years with Noranda (now Glencore); 15 in milling operations as a process engineer at their Brunswick Mines operation and in senior management at their Mattabi/Lyon Lake and their Geco mining operations, and nine years in industrial R&D at the Noranda Technology Centre (NTC) in Montreal Canada. He won the Noranda/Falconbridge Chairman’s Team Technology Award in 1998 and in 2000 while at NTC. He has authored/co-authored some 50 technical publications in journals and conference proceedings. Since 2003 he has been a consultant to the mining industry (NesseTech Consulting Services), primarily in the areas of flotation, gas dispersion/cell hydrodynamics technology, and self-heating of sulphide mixtures, as well as being an adjunct professor and lecturer at McGill. Jan is a Fellow, a Distinguished Lecturer (2008-9) and Life Member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (CIM) and served as Chair of the Canadian Mineral Processors Society of CIM in 2002-2003, and served as a member of the CMP Board of Directors from2000 to 2018. Jan was a member of the Organizing Committee for the highly successful IMPC 2016 in Quebec City. In 2018 he compiled and edited the published CIM volume Canadian Contributions to Mineral Processing Technology 1968-2018, on which this keynote is partly based.