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Twin approach to recovery of metals from mine waste

Posted on 30 July 2014

Scientists from the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence (GCCE) at the University of York are to work with colleagues in Cape Town to help the recovery of valuable metals from mine wastes in South Africa.

They have won a 7^th Framework Programme “Twinning” grant from the European-South African Science and Technology Advancement Programme (ESASTAP) as part of a drive to deepen scientific and technological cooperation between Europe and South Africa. ESASTAP is seeking to establish strategic, long-term institutional cooperation between EU and South African partners.

The York team -- Professor James Clark, Dr Andrew Hunt and Dr Helen Parker -- will twin with scientists from the University of Cape Town (UCT) to combine their expertise in green technologies for the recovery of platinum group metals (PGMs) from mine wastes.

This will harness current research being carried out at the GCCE as part of Phytocat, a €1.2 million project funded by the G8 Research Councils Initiative on Multilateral Research Funding: Material Efficiency, www.phytocat.org. Phytocat investigates the recovery of PGM’s using plants.

Professor Clark says: “Our objective will be to combine this with novel bioadsorption technology, developed at UCT, to recover metals from both liquid and solid mine wastes. South Africa is the leading miner and supplier of PGMs to the world market and is the ideal location for this project.”

In addition to this work, the GCCE will also help to establish a Centre of Excellence in Green Chemistry at UCT with the expectation that this will facilitate further project collaborations and an enduring alliance between York and UCT.

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