FIVE MINUTES WITH ...
Robin Batterham
Appointed the Chief Scientist of Australia in 1999 , Professor Robin Batterham has worked as the Chief Technologist of a leading mining organisation and has since taken great pride in sharing his chemical engineering knowledge in academic settings , including the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering ( ATSE ) and the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering .
We spoke to Batterham to find out more about his career in the mining industry and how he sees the future of the sector .
“There is much hype around big data , data analytics and machine learning ”
Q . COULD YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE IN THE MINING INDUSTRY ?
» “ Since graduating in chemical engineering , my career has been primarily in industry ( ICI , Rio Tinto ) or collaborating directly with the mining industry ( CSIRO and , for the last 11 years , at the University of Melbourne ). The focus of this work was and continues to be on the scale-up of new processes and the improvement of existing processes . Early in my career , I developed a successful principle for scale-up that has been applied in many examples and continues to be used to good effect , 50 years later . I have also served as the Chief Scientist of Australia and President of the 2 ( soon to be 3 ) International Mineral Processing Congresses .”
Q . HOW DOES THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE CONTRIBUTE TO THE MINING INDUSTRY ?
» “ The University is very active in collaboration with industry , from general support centres such as the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for enabling eco-efficient beneficiation of minerals through to specific and on-going collaborations in solvent extraction , in tailings dewatering , in mine planning and optimisation , in slope stability and many related areas such as emissions reduction and sustainability .”
20 January 2022