The University of Queensland has awarded an internal fellowship scheme to foster research excellence in applications that deal with water technology issues in the mining industry. It is one of 15 successful applications for the award given to Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellowships.
Professor Jurg Keller who is the head of the University of Queensland’s Advanced Water Management Centre is one of 13 to be awarded this honour. The University of Queensland has also announced that it will award two Research Fellowships in the Humanities and Social Sciences that will fund both schemes and has been valued at $ 6.5 million.
The research in the fellowships is on diverse topics such as terminating autoimmune diabetes, the extinction of human fear, the sensory world of Australian animals, media and material culture, quantum optics and solar-driven energy conversion. However professor Keller said that his new project would use biological processes in the treatment of mining and minerals waste.
He said that the use of bio-processes is currently limited, and some are not well developed. Adding in his statement that approaches to recover key resources such as metals or sulfur compounds are largely unknown, apart from some notable industry exceptions. He said that this fellowship will create the scientific understanding and novel process concepts to develop pioneering technologies.
The project will be a collaborative effort between, the University's expertise in its Advanced Water Management Centre, the Sustainable Minerals Institute and the School of Chemical Engineering. Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield said that the global contest for researchers of this calibre is intense, and Australia cannot afford to lose more top-notch talent to overseas competitors.