PbZn 2020: 9th international symposium on leadand zinc processing

Lead–Zinc 2020 (PbZn 2020) is the ninth symposium of the Lead–Zinc conference series organized by multiple metallurgical societies worldwide, which is devoted to the theory and practice of the Lead and Zinc extractive metallurgy. This year’s conference celebrates its 50th anniversary and continues a conference series originally initiated as a decennial symposium by the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) with the pioneer first meeting in St. Louis in 1970, and subsequent conferences organized by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) in Las Vegas in 1980, Anaheim in 1990, Pittsburgh in 2000, and Vancouver in 2010. Throughout that time, other international societies have also offered major Lead–Zinc meetings, including the Metallurgy & Materials Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (MetSoc) in 1998 and 2008, the Mining and Materials Processing Institute of Japan (MMIJ) in 1995 and 2005, and the Gesellschaft der Metallurgen und Bergleute (GDMB) in 2015. The PbZn 2020 symposium is organized by TMS and held in conjunction with the TMS 2020 Annual Meeting & Exhibition, the premier annual event of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society. It is co-sponsored by the other three international society members of the Lead–Zinc conference series: MetSoc, GDMB, and MMIJ. It is also the first time that the Lead–Zinc conference series received enhanced involvement from the Chinese lead and zinc industry through the active support for the PbZn 2020 symposium by the Nonferrous Society of China (NFSoc). Pooling the resources of TMS and the close sponsorship of MetSoc, GDMB, and MMIJ as well as the co-organization of NFSoc were an imperative and effective approach to offering a meeting of the highest value and quality, and making the PbZn 2020 an efficient, productive, and attractive event. With the global consolidation of the lead and zinc industry, it is important that the different metallurgical societies worldwide are working together in order to avoid conferences scheduled too close together as well as overlapping. Taking into consideration that the market for lead and zinc production and consumption has dramatically shifted during the last two decades, the four society members invited NFSoc to become a permanent member of the Lead–Zinc conference series at the PbZn 2020 v symposium. With that, I am happy to announce that the next PbZn symposium in 2023 will be organized and held by NFSoc in China.