Recovering precious metals from wastewaters
Messel travel bursar Cherie-Lynn Mack reports from Material, Minerals and Metal Ecology 2006, Cape Town
 With the help of a Messel Travel Bursary from SCI, I was able to attend the Material, Minerals and Metal Ecology 2006 conference organised by Minerals Engineering International. The conference was held at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, from 14-15 November 2006.
The conference attracted a small and specialised group of people involved in materials recycling and minerals processing, and I found it was possible to meet and exchange ideas with almost every delegate in attendance. Informal discussions with Professors Markus Reuter and Kari Heiskanen regarding their insights into the European research culture and the industrial recycling culture were especially valuable.
All the general and industrial paper presentations were concluded on the first day, leaving the entire second day for PhD research presentations from students from universities including Curtin University of Technology (Australia), Delft Technical University (The Netherlands), Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), Tokai University (Japan) and the Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden).
My own paper on ‘Waste yeast for cost reduction of precious metal recovery from aqueous wastewaters’ was the only biologically-oriented research presented, and prompted discussions with other delegates regarding aspects of my research they had not encountered in their own fields. I also made contact with a number of people that may be in a position to offer me placement for post-doctoral research once I have completed my PhD.
My attendance at this conference has had a profound impact on me. After experiencing the quality of international PhD-level research, I have renewed confidence in the quality of the research conducted at Rhodes University as a whole, and by myself in my own work. Thank you SCI, for making this possible.
Cherie-Lynn Mack
Rhodes University,
South Africa
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