Francis Edward and Alexander Stanley Elmore

Francis Edward and Alexander Stanley Elmore (respectively, born Nov. 9, 1864, Liverpool—died July 26, 1932, Boxmoor, Hertfordshire, Eng.; born Jan. 1, 1867, Liverpool—died March 4, 1944, Boxmoor) were British technologists, joint developers of flotation processes by which valuable ore, such as that of copper, is separated from the worthless material (gangue) with which it is usually extracted from the Earth.

In their early days the brothers, with their father, were engaged in the electrolytic refining of copper and in the production of copper tubes. The “bulk oil process,” the first flotation process commercially employed, was invented by Francis, patented in 1898, and brought into use by his brother. In this process the ore was ground, suspended in water, and brought in contact with oil. As the oil floated up through the slurry, it wetted the particles of the mineral in preference to those of the gangue and carried them out of the mixture. Subsequently, the brothers developed an improved process (Elmore vacuum process) that required less oil and became widely used in the concentration of low-grade ores during the 20th century.