The University of Queensland’s Pyrometallurgy Research Centre (PYROSEARCH) has secured a major boost to its research on high temperature metal smelting.
The team, under the supervision of PYROSEARCH Director Associate Professor Peter Hayes and Research Director Dr Evgueni Jak, were awarded the nation’s highest overall Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage-Project grant for 2002.
Their five-year grant worth $299,000 in the first year (2002) and a total of $1.38 million will be complemented by $1.15 million of industry funding.
"This is an outstanding result for the University which further affirms the relevance of our research to our industry collaborators,"Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay said.
The grants, which were recently announced by Federal Education Minister Dr David Kemp, are part of a $294 million package for 1284 new research projects starting in 2002.
UQ topped the nation in total projected funding for the ARC’s Linkage-Projects scheme, with a total of $8.91 million in projected funding being awarded to the University for industry-collaborated projects.
Welcoming the financial support Dr Jak said: “This additional funding will enable us to further expand our research activities nationally and internationally, not only with the ARC funding but also by industry funding from an industrial consortia consisting of companies from Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, France, Canada and Columbia.”
“The recently established PYROSEARCH Centre in UQ’s School of Engineering provides research services to the mineral industry worldwide in the areas of non-ferrous and ferrous metal smelting and refining, and coal utilisation,” Dr Hayes said.
He said the collaborative research project was built on a series of successful fundamental and applied research projects undertaken by Dr Jak, Dr Baojun Zhao and other members of the PYROSEARCH team.
Dr Hayes said the project would lead to the development of advanced thermodynamic and process models for high temperature metal smelting technologies.
“The project will enable the outcomes of complex reactions to be predicted over a wide range of process conditions and chemistries independent of process technology and will address a number of complex technical problems associated with the high temperature chemical processing of minerals and metals,” he said.
“This research could not be carried out without UQ's state-of-the-art research infrastructure, in particular the $1 million electron microprobe facility maintained by Ron Rasch at the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis.
“This infrastructure, in addition to UQ's quality research methodologies and experimental and computer modelling techniques, allows us to create scientific research outcomes that can be employed by industry.
“Science, industry, the environment and the wider community will all benefit from this sort of collaborative project.
“In the wider context investment in research by government and industry is essential if Australia is to develop and maintain leadership in its key technologies.”
For details on research projects currently being undertaken by PYROSEARCH, visit: http://pyrosearch.minmet.uq.edu.au
Media: For further information, contact Associate Professor Peter Hayes (telephone 07 3365 3551), Dr Eugene Jak (telephone 07 3365 3666) or Joanne van Zeeland at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2619).
