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Current News :

Media Release: September 15th, 2009
UniSA research merger builds capacity at Mawson Institute: The Mawson Institute and ACeSSS will merge to form an expanded Mawson Institute from this month.

Future Fellowship Strategy and Travel Award

Share some of the ACeSSS Staff and Students 2008 / 2009 achievements:

$220M Support Research

Synchrotron Microprobe Examination of Nickel Laterite Ore

A Breakthrough: Aluminium Hydroxide Crystal Growth Pathways Revealed by Synchrotron Small Angle X-ray Scattering

Highlights:

PhD Student, Joe Ciccarelli was a Best Paper Finalist at the ITEE Research Day 29th May, 2009 and PhD Students Ning Xu, Rong Fan and TiJun Lu all represented ACeSSS with Poster Presentations.  As ACeSSS Acting Director Head of Research at the ITEE Research Day, Dr. Joe Cavallaro gave a short presentation.

Joe Ciccarelli, PhD Student, has been nominated for Best Paper at the 2009 ITEE Research Day, to be held on Friday 29th May 2009.

Mike van Alphen was awarded a cheque for $100 for the student prize at the 10th Conference of The Australian Microbeam Analysis Society (AMAS X), and it was announced that Mike will be the secretary of AMAS in 2011.

The Maslen Scholarship by SCANZ was awarded to TiJun Lu to attend the CRYSTAL26 Conference in the Barossa Valley 14th – 17th April, 2009

Josh Bowden, PhD student of ACeSSS has received excellent examiners reports on his thesis “Study into the nature of radio frequency plasma modification of layered silicate related minerals” with one examiner recommending pass forthwith and one examiner recommending minor corrections. Comments received included: “In my assessment, the candidate could not have conducted his studies any more thoroughly, nor are there obvious lapses in method or interpretation.” “Of the PhD theses I have reviewed, I would place this one at the eightieth percentile, i.e. well done!”

Wednesday 10th September, 2008 was the ACeSSS External Advisory Board Committee Meeting at the Stamford Plaza Hotel. It was presented by 25 ACeSSS staff and students and attended by Prof. Stewart McIntyre, (Surface Science Western, Canadian Light Source) Dr. Paul Greenhill, (AMIRA International), Prof. John White (ANU), Dr. Neville Plint (Anglo Platinum). Prof. Andrew Parfitt and Dr Mark Hochman joined the discussions in the afternoon and a dinner followed the proceedings of the day.

Australian Synchrotron has offered ACeSSS PhD Student Anand Chandra a position, one of only ten for all Australia, at the 2nd Cheiron Synchrotron School, which will be held at the Spring-8 Synchrotron in Japan from September 29th to October 8th, 2008. Accommodation and transport costs will be covered by the award. The Cheiron School's main aim is to provide useful and basic knowledge and perspectives on synchrotron radiation science and technology for PhD students, young scientists and engineers in the Asia-Oceania region.

During their recent visit to China in September, 2008, Prof. Andrea Gerson (ACeSSS Director), Prof. Roger Smart (ACeSSS Deputy Director) and Dr Jun Li attended and gave presentations the 6th International Acid Sulfate Soil Conference and the Acid Rock Drainage Symposium, South China Agricultural University, Wushan, Guangzhou.  They also visited Wuhan University of Technology and gave seminars at School of Resource & Environmental Engineering to about 60 students and staff, including 3 members from Jiangxi Copper Mine.  After the seminar, many of the students expressed an interest in applying for UniSA scholarships for further PhD study in Australia.  A meeting with representatives from the Jiangxi Copper Mine was held to address questions regarding Acid Mine Drainage problems at the mine site and to discuss potential linkage projects.  During open discussions with research staff from Wuhan University the potential for research collaborations was regarded as a high possibility. Moving onto Beijing late in September,2008 Andrea, Roger and Jun attended The XXIV International Mineral Processing Congress where Andrea and Roger gave presentations and Jun exhibited a posted which attracted the most attention of all the exhibits.

Teaching & Learning:

Mike van Alphen attended training workshops in EBSD, EPMA, LAICPMS and TEM from Wednesday 9th to Saturday 14th February, 2009.

Calibration and alignment of HECUS SAXS & WAXS system conducted by Manfred Kriechbaum was attended by ACeSSS members Jun Li, Klara Kaplun, student Patricia Curtis and Lee Hoffman and John Thomas on Tuesday 2nd February, 2009
 

Research & Research Education:

On Thursday 28th May, ACeSSS received news of their successful Linkage Projects Round 2 grants –
• Prof AR Gerson, Dr DJ Simpson Dr GP Cavallaro’s joint venture project with Tiwest joint venture, Enhanced pigment weathering resistance by coating with high dielectric ceramic, 2009-2011.
• Dr J Li and Prof RS Smart’s AMIRA International Limited joint venture project Mechanisms for Pyrite Oxidation Control in Acid Mine Drainage, 2009-2012.

ACeSSS members, Joe Cavallaro, Jun Li, Darren Simpson, Byuki Kawashima, Bev Gordon, TiJun Lu, Joe Ciccarelli, Ning Xu, Rong Fan, all attended ITEE Research Day on Friday 29th May, 2009.

On Wednesday 13th May, 2009, Dr. Jun Li attended the NAGA Grants Panel Meeting along John Boland, Sang-Heon Lee, Markus Stumptner, Kutluyil Dogancay, Yalcin Kaya, Chris Daniels, Albert Juhasz, Zahid Qureshi, Krasimir Vasilev and Brenton Hughes.

Dr. Joe Cavallaro has been awarded synchrotron time in June 2009 at Australian Synchrotron.

Dr. Klara Kaplun attended the Division Research Development Cohort Meeting on Friday, April 24th, 2009.

Student Rong Fan will be in the US between the 8thand 20th April, 2009,visiting Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, San Francisco, and University of Chicago’s Center for Advanced Radiation Sources at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago for synchrotron experiments.

Dr. Joe Cavallaro and student Anand Chandra are currently at ELETTRA Synchrotron Light Laboratory, Triest, Italy 3rd April – 7th April, 2009, for Beamtime on Project - A SPEM and XPS study of Sulphur and Iron Species on Fresh and Acid Leached Pyrite Surfaces.

Dr Jun Li and Patricia Curtis (PhD student, EIE) were in Melbourne 30th March to 3rd April, 2009, using the Small Angle X-ray Scattering beamline at the Australian Synchrotron. Five different sample configurations were investigated over the allocated seven shifts, with some interesting preliminary results seen.

On 11th March, 2009 Jun Li attended the 2009 Research Day Working Group meeting along with Associate Professor John Boland (Chair), Ms Angela Consoli, Professor Chris Daniels, Dr Quoc Do, Ms Carole Gibbs, Dr Sang-Heon Lee, Dr Jun Li, Dr Krasimir Vasilev, Dr Stewart Von Itzstein (for Dr Jiuyong Li), Ms Katie Ward, Dr Bruce Wedding and Janet Bonython (Executive Officer).

On Monday 19th January, 2009 a Premiers Science & Research Fund Project, New Information for Minerals Processing representatives meeting was held with Lucy Esdaile of Rio Tinto and Puru Shrestha from BHP-Billiton.

Prof. Andrea Gerson attended meetings of the Foundation Investors Liaison Committee for the Australian Synchrotron (on behalf of Hugh Harris from Adelaide University) and the first meeting of the IPAC (International Proposal Advisory Committee) for the Australian Synchrotron both on the 2nd of December, 2008 (meetings held in Melbourne).

Prof. Andrea Gerson met with Lucy Esdaile of Rio Tinto on the 4th of December, 2008 (Melbourne) regarding research and collaboration opportunities.

Dr Joe Cavallaro and PhD Student Anand Chandra carried out synchrotron microprobe measurements at the Advance Photon Source - BeamLine 20-ID in Chicago, ISA, 8th - 10th October 2008.

People:

Prof Gianfranco Pacchioni from Dipartimento di Scienza dei Materiali, Università di Milano-Bicocca visited ACeSSS on 7th April 09 and gave a presentation entitled “The special properties of oxide ultrathin films on metals”.

ACeSSS was visited by Application Scientist, R & D - Manfred Kriechbaum from Hecus X-ray Systems GMBH,Graz, Austria on Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd February, 2009.

On 30th November, 2008 Dr. Murray Gibbson, Director of the Advanced Photon Source, Argonned National Laboratory Chicago visited Prof. Andrea Gerson.Conferences, Seminars and Workshops.

Dr. Neville Plint, Research Manager, Anglo Platinum, South Africa visited Prof. Andrea Gerson and Prof. Roger Smart on 14th November, 2008.

On the 3rd of November, 2008 ACeSSS received a visit from Dr Gayle Morris – Victoria University to discuss and meet with members from relevant Research Projects.

Wednesday 29th October,2008 - Dr John Rivieѓe , previously Head, Surface and Materials Division, Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment - discussions were held on two book chapters in “Handbook of Surface and Interface Analysis: Methods for Problem Solving".

Conferences, seminars, workshops:

PhD Student Jason Du attended and gave a presentation at the Ian Wark Research Institute Student Seminars on Friday 1st May, 2009. Jason’s presentation was entitled A Cryo-SEM Study of Raking Behaviour in Assisting Clay Based Tailing Dewatering in Thickener.

Student Joe Ciccarelli submitted at conference paper "Estimation of Long- term silicate neutralisation of Acid Mine Drainage" for the 8th ICARD Conference to be held in Skelleftea, Sweden on June 22 -26, 2009.

PhD Student’s Ning Xu and Tijun Lu attended the CRYSTAL 26, The 26th Biennial Conference of the Society of Crystallographers in Australia and New Zealand at Barossa Valley in 14th - 17th April, 2009. Ning gave a presentation 'Microstructure of Cryogenically Treated High Performance Tool Steels' and Tijun’s presentation was 'Improved 3D Synchrotron Microprobe Diffraction Data Analysis'.

On Thursday 2nd April, 2009, at the offices of Parsons Brinkerhoff in Adelaide, Mike van Alphen gave a 2 hour presentation to 45 government employees including, Health, EPA, SA Water, Workplace Services, Asbestos Advisory Committee and Workplace Asbestos inspector. The meeting also included invited consultants, property developers and local government representatives. Broadly the presentation was on asbestos in soil and asbestos risk.

Relating to his interest in issues regarding asbestos problems, Mike van Alphen attended an ARRB Consultants seminar on Tuesday 10th March, 2009, as an invited guest. The seminar was attended by regulators ( eg EPA), civil engineering consultants, civil contractors and waste recyclers.

Tuesday 10th March,2009, Roger Smart, Jun Li, Andrew Lewis and Byuki Kawashima attended IWRI Seminar – “Polyatomic Primary Ion Beams – A New SIMS Paradigm”.

Mike van Alphen attended training workshops in EBSD, EPMA, LAICPMS and TEM from Wednesday 9th to Saturday 14th February, 2009.

On Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th February , Manfred Kriechbaum from Hecus X-ray Systems GMBH,Graz, Austria gave ACeSSS staff and student training sessions on SAXS.

Roger Smart and student Jason Du attended the “Australian Colloid and Interface Symposium” in Glenelg, on 1st-5th February 2009 whereby Jason Du gave an oral presentation on “ Control of the aggregate structure, settling and dewatering during mineral tailing processing”.

On Friday the 6th of February, 2009 Joe Cavallaro attended the ‘GREEN CAR INNOVATION FUND” presentation at Innovation House at Technology Park.

On Wednesday 11th February, 2009, Mike van Alphen attended and gave a presentation titled: "Analysis of asbestos minerals by EPMA; what methodology and QA/QC may be warranted to obtain fingerprints based upon 'major' elements" to the 10th conference of The Australian Microbeam Analysis Society (AMAS X).

Prof. Gerson attended the Asia Oceanic Week of Synchrotron Science (2nd to 5th of December, 2008, Melbourne) and presented the poster (co-authors Rong Fan and Joe Cavallaro) 'Synchrotron Microprobe Analysis of Nickel Laterite'.

Prof. Andrea Gerson was a member of the program committee for the Australian Institute of Physics Congress 2008 (30th November to 5th of December, held at Adelaide University) and was responsible for organisation of the two synchrotron sessions held. Key note speakers in these sessions were Dr. Murray Gibson, Director of the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratories, Argonne, Illinois, USA, one of the three biggest synchrotrons in the world and also Dr. Mark Boland of the Australian Synchrotron. Prof. Andrea Gerson also presented a paper (co-authors Dr. Joe Cavallaro and Ms. Ning Xu) entitled 'The application of synchrotron microdiffraction to identify 3D strains in high performance tool steels'.

Joe Ciccarelli, ACeSSS PhD Student, was the recipient of a scholarship to attend the 2008 6th Australian Workshop on Acid and Metalliferous Drainage held in Burnie, Tasmania. The ACMER conference held in April awarded Joe the prize for Best Student Poster Paper which was titled "Determination of Acid Neutralisation rate of silicate minerals using Kinetic Dissolution Cell Method".

Prof. Andrea Gerson is a program Committee member for the Australian Institute of Physics Congress to be held in Adelaide in November, 2008.

Andrew Lewis, Klara Kaplun and Nobuyuki Kawashima attended ‘Supervising @ UniSA’ on Thursday 27 November, with presentations from Ms Jayne Taylor, Ms Karen Burke, Dr Cassandra Loeser, Dr Vicki Crowley & Dr Sheila.

Tijun Lu attended 'Applying Project Management Principles to your work', on 28 November.

Mike van Alphen gave a presentation to CRC Care on 5th November titled “Electron micro-probe analysis of Asbestos minerals” and a shorter version of the presentation to The School of NBE of 11th November, 2008.

PhD Student Jason Du gave a presentation to CRC Care on 5th November, 2008 titled “Control of Aggregate Structure, Settling and Dewatering of Mineral Tailing”.

Nobuyuki Kawashima attended the Fluorescence & Live Cell Imaging Meets Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) seminar at Adelaide Microscopy, University of Adelaide on 2nd October, 2008.

The MATLAB & Simulink Embedded Programming Seminar was attended Tijun Lu on 4th September, 2008.

Mike van Alphen attended the Meeting of South Australian Asbestos Coalition on Friday 29th August, 2008.

On Friday 15th August 2008, Mike van Alphen attended the Asbestos in Soil Workshop, and gave a presentation titled: Review of the Johnson Asbgestos Conference".

ACeSSS PhD Student Jianhua Du's poster "Control of Clay Aggregate Structure During Settling and Dewatering in Tailing Processing" has been commended as a finalist in the competition for the best posters prepared by research students 2008, by the Division of ITEE presented on 20th June, 2008 at the Division Research Day.

Joe Ciccarelli, ACeSSS PhD Student, was the recipient of a scholarship to attend the 2008 6th Australian Workshop on Acid and Metalliferous Drainage held in Burnie, Tasmania.  The ACMER conference held in April awarded Joe the prize for Best Student Poster Paper which was titled "Determination of Acid Neutralisation rate of silicate minerals using Kinetic Dissolution Cell Method".

EIE/ACeSSS PhD Student Patricia Curtis was awarded accommodation and transport costs to attend the ANSTO - AINSE Neutron School on Materials, 20-25 July 2008 at Lucas Heights (Sydney).  All neutron techniques available at ANSTO were covered through a comprehensive series of lectures, applications, experiments, data analysis and participant presentations.  Whilst there, Patricia was awarded equal 1st place for her poster and clip session "Characteristics and Behaviour of Crystal Growth Modifier During Gibbsite Nucleation".

International:

PhD Student, Rong Fan attended synchrotron measurement at the Advanced Light Source of Berkeley National Laboratory, USA, 10th - 12th April, and 18th - 20th April, 2009, for synchrotron measurement at the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, USA.

Prof. Andrea Gerson, Dr. Joe Cavallaro and student Rong Fan attended the Photon Factory in Ibaraki, Japan for synchrotron instrument time awarded to ‘X-ray absorption spectroscopy studies of leach products of nickel laterites’ from 22nd – 25th January, 2009.

Dr. Darren Simpson and student Anand Chandra will be attending Advanced Photon Source, Chicago, for synchrotron instrument time awarded to ‘Bulk and solution sulfur speciation study of acid leached pyrite using XANES and XRF imaging’ and – ‘Copper activation mechanism of high and low Fe containing sphalerite (ZnS), and pyrite (FeS2)’.
Andrea Gerson was an invited speaker at the TMS2009, 138th Annual Meeting and & Exhibition, San Francisco, USA - Sunday 15th February to Thursday 19th of February, 2009. The presentation was ‘The Application of Synchrotron Microdiffraction to Identify 3D Strains in High Performance Steel’ by Andrea Gerson, Joe Cavallaro and student Ning Xu. Prof. Gerson also chaired the session ‘Neutron and X-Ray Studies of Advanced Materials: Resolving Local Structure’.

Prof. Roger Smart has been invited to be a member of the International Symposium SIMSXVII 2009 program Committee.

During his research visit to UPS synchrotron (Chicago), on Monday 13th October, Tijun Lu gave a presentation "Improved 3D Synchrotron Microprobe Diffraction Data Analysis" to the X-ray Scattering & Microscopy Group, Material Science & Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (TN, USA)"

Prof. Andrea Gerson (ACeSSS Director), Prof. Roger Smart (ACeSSS Deputy Director) and Dr. Jun Li attended The 6th International Acid Sulfate Soil Conference and the Acid Rock Drainage Symposium, South China Agricultural University, Wushan, Guangzhou, China from September 16th - 20th 2008.  They also visited Wuhan University of Technology, 21st - 23rd September, where on the 22nd September, seminars were given at Schoool of Resource & Environmental Engineering to about sixty students and staff including three members from Jiangxi Copper Miner.  Many students have expressed their interests to apply for a UniSA scholarship for further study in Australia after the seminar.  A meeting with representatives from the Jiangxi Copper Mine was held to address questions regarding Acid Mine Drainage problems they have in the mine site and to discuss potential linkage projects.  On 23rd September, there were open discussions with the Research staff from the Wuhan University regarding research collaborations, at least two of them have expressed their interest to put a linkage project in place with ACeSSS.

Prof. Andrea Gerson has carried out research discussions with the companies of Nalco (Chicago, USA) on the 11th September and  Cytec (Stamford, USA) on the 12th of September, 2008.  At both companies she presented a seminar entitled "The Application of Advanced Analytical Techniques to Aspects of Minerals Processing".

ACeSSS External Advisory Board Committee Meeting (details above) was attended by 2 International visitors – Prof. Stewart McIntyre and Dr, Neville Plint.

Prof. Roger Smart is a member of the Organising Committee of the Joint Conference of the 6th International Acid Sulfate Soil Conference and the Acid Rock Drainage Symposium, Guangzhou, China, 7-29 September, 2008.

Prof.s Andrea Gerson and Roger Smart presented a workshop to Exxaro Workshop (Pretoria, South Africa) on Surface Chemical Control Factors in Flotation 23rd and 24th June, 2008.

Prof. Roger Smart carried out X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy training for minerals processing for Anglo Platinum staff, Johannesburg, South Africa, 9th -20th June, 2008.

Prof. Andrea Gerson presented research finding of the project Precious Metal Refinery Liquors to Anglo Platinum and Anglo Research staff, 20th June 2008.

Prof.s Andrea Gerson and Roger Smart took part in the planning of a flotation plant survey at Rosh Pinah, Namibia, 25th - 26th June, 2008.

Dr. Joe Cavallaro and PhD Student Anand Chandra were the first users of the VESPERS end-station at the Canadian Light Source.  They undertook XRF imaging and unreacted and copper activated sulfide minerals (Pyrite, high and low Fe sphalerite, Chalcopyrite), VESPERS, Canadian Light Source, 20th -27th June, 2008.

Collaborations and Partnerships:

Joe Cavallaro, Darren Simpson, Andrew Lewis and John Haskey received an invitation to visit Holden on the 7th May, 2009.

Joe Cavallaro and student Anand Chandra visited Rio Tinto Ltd., Bundoora, Victoria on 2nd March, 2009, where Anand presented his research update “Acidic leaching and flotation studies of pyrite and other sulfide minerals: A synchrotron based approach." Rio Tinto representatives were Dewittia Latti, Lucy Esdale, Greg Wilkie and Paul Brown.

From the 9th to the 13th of February, 2009, Andrea Gerson and Roger Smart were in Seattle, USA visiting Professor John Rehr, Department of Physics, University of Washington to progress the collaboration with his group and our PhD student Mark Biesinger (from University of Western Ontario) on the calculation of transition metals X-ray photoelectron spectra.

Prof. Andrea Gerson and ACeSSS was visited by Dr. Stephen Clark and Dr. David Kemoe from Flinders University on 14th November, 2008 to discus the opportunities for collaboration.

On Tuesday 21st October, 2008, AMIRA P933/ARC Linkage Project Fifth Sponsors Meeting was held at Mawson Lakes Campus, UniSA, presented by Roger Smart, Jun Li, Nobuyuki Kawashima, Mike van Alphen, and Joe Ciccarelli. Sponsor Representatives were Grey Bailey (AMIRA), Chris Leiner (Oz Minerals), Paul Borown (Rio Tinto), Warwick Stewart (EGi), George Levay & Russell Shumann (Levay & Co), Stephane Brienne and Patricia Groulx (Teck Cominco) and Margaret Kalin (Boojum Research).

Prof. Gong Wenqi, School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, Hubei , China visited ACeSSS 13th – 17th October 2008.  During his visit, on Tuesday 14th October he was guest presenter at the ACeSSS / CRC Care SEMINAR : Mineral / Waste based environmental materials. ACeSSS attendees were Prof. Andrea Gerson , Prof. Roger Smart , Dr. Jun Li , Dr. Byuki Kawashima, Dr, Andrew Lewis, and PhD students Ning Xu, Jason Du, Joe Ciccarelli and Rong Fan.

Monday 25th - Friday 29th August 2008, Prof. Andrea Gerson attended the ARC Collect of Experts in Canberra.

Other news:

On the 6th of May, 2009, Prof. Andrea Gerson was interviewed by the ABC program Catalyst for a story they are doing on the uptake of As by school children in the Victorian gold fields area and how this uptake was probed using synchrotron micro-analysis of the children’s toenails.

Joe Cavallaro and students Rong Fan and Anand Chandra were at Australian Synchrotron running experiments for Leaching of Pyrite – Mapping with IR project from 3rd to 7th March, 2009.

On Monday 1st September 2008, Garth Porter stated as ACeSSS's 7th PhD Student.

Prof. Roger Smart attended and ITEK Meeting - Nanocoating on Dental Screws, along with Southern Implants (Pty) Ltd South Africa, CEO Graham Blackbeard on Friday 15th August, 2008.

At the fortnightly ACeSSS Staff & Student Seminar on Wednesday 6th August, visiting Presenter Dr. Joan E. Thomas gave a presentation on "Interaction of organic acids and lipids on kaolinite and gamma-alumina. Surface specific studies using DRIFTS - Surface Specific Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy."

On Monday 4th August 2008, ACeSSS was visited by Research Visitor Mr Deryke de Vaux from Anglo Researc, South Africa.

Professors Andrea Gerson and Roger Smart visited Rio Tinto Innovation Group, Bundoora, Victoria for an Industry Sponsors Meeting for ACeSSS's Chalcopyritie Leaching and Tailings Dewatering Projects.

Prof. Roger Smart and PhD Student Joe Ciccarelli visited Zinifex Century Mine for the AMIRA / ARC Linkage project, Acid Rock Drainage Control, 29 April-1 May, 2008.
 

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