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Biography:

Anh Nguyen is a professor at the School of Chemical Engineering where he held the BMA (BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance) Chair from 2007 till 2017. He previously held academic positions at the University of Newcastle (Australia), the University of Utah (USA) and the Technical University of Kosice (Czechoslovakia). He was awarded an ARC (Australian Research Council) Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Germany). His relevant publications include a research book on the colloidal science of flotation, 3 edited volumes, 15 book chapters (invited) and over 300 papers in refereed journals. He has editorial role on Advances in Colloid and Interface Science, and International Journal of Mineral Processing.

Research:

Professor Nguyen’s research interests embrace various aspects of colloid and interfacial science and engineering. The focus of his current research is on colloid and interface science of particles, bubbles and drops in surfactant solutions and saline water. The ultimate applications include coal and minerals processing, saline water usage and treatment, foliar fertilisers, smart self-cleaning materials, hydrophobic hydration and hydrates of natural gas, and particle separation. His research funding has come from industry partners (BMA, BHP Billiton, Xstrata, Rio Tinto, OneSteel, Agrichem) and agencies (ARC and ACARP). He is the Leader of the Mineral Processing and Interfacial Processes group.

Teaching and Learning:

Professor Nguyen aims to encourage critical thinking, understanding and application of fundamental principles. The objective is to engage students by providing a stimulating learning process and environment at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, relevant to the changing focus of national and global economic importance. He has taught a number of courses, including colloid and surface chemistry, particle processing and technology, unit operation, coal and mineral processing, flotation, computing and design laboratory, process modelling and simulation. He is currently an academic and international advisor for chemical and metallurgical engineering.

Projects:

1. Saline Water: molecular phenomena and engineering of saline water-air interfaces, water desalination, salt flotation, coal flotation in sea water and tailings processing. Foliar Fertilizers and Pesticides: self-assembly of colloids from evaporating droplets on leaf surfaces.
2. Gas Hydrates: role of hydrophobic hydration and additives in gas hydrate formation for storage and transportation.
3. Nanomaterials: surface self-assembly of surfactants and nanobubbles
4. Hydrometallurgy: role of colloidal forces and surface chemistry in bacteria attachment in bioleaching, and leaching of minerals in brine solutions.
5. Mineral Processing: role of microhydrodynamics and colloidal forces in bubble-particle collection in flotation, surface electrochemistry of sulfide flotation, flotation of ultrafine particles, flotation of coarse particles and composite particles.
6. Foam and Froth: drainage and stability of thin films of saline water, role of particle shape and hydrophobicity in foam drainage and stability, foamed cements.
7. Molecular (MC and MD) modeling and validation by VSFG spectroscopy of the partition of salt ions and surfactants at the interfaces of liquid films relevant to flotation, bubble columns and oil processing.

Prof Kazuhiro Nogita’s research interests are in: working on Pb-free solder alloys and intermetallics, hydrogen storage alloys, Li-ion battery anode materials, Zn-Al coating alloys and structural Al-Si and Mg alloys. The unifying theme throughout his research career has been the development of environmentally sustainable materials solutions for conventional and alternative electronic, transport and power industries.

Prof Nogita graduated as an Engineer in Japan in 1990 and worked in the nuclear power industry with Hitachi Ltd. for several years. He was awarded a PhD from Kyushu University in 1997 and has subsequently worked on a variety of research projects, including the development of materials for alternative power industries and environmentally friendly applications. He migrated to Australia in 1999 after accepting a position at the University of Queensland, where he currently holds the title of Professor and Director of the Nihon Superior Centre for the Manufacture of Electronic Materials (NS CMEM) within the School of Mechanical & Mining Engineering, and a founding manager of The University of Queensland - Kyushu University Oceania Project (“UQ-KU Project”). He is also an invited Professor at Kyushu University and at the University of Malaysia Perlis.

Currently, the majority of Prof Nogita’s research is in two major areas, namely lead-free solders for electronic applications and metal based hydrogen-storage alloys. He holds 15 international patents and has authored over 200 refereed scientific papers. His research has been acknowledged with several awards/fellowships, including Queensland Government Smart Futures Fellowship and he has been instrumental in the establishment of a spin-off company, Hydrexia Pty. Ltd.

Professor Kate O'Brien applies modelling and data analysis to explore sustainability challenges in engineered, ecological and human systems. Professor O'Brien works with a diverse network of local and international collaborators, from academia, government and industry, to tackle important questions such as: In restoring valuable coastal habitat, what is the minimum patch size required for success, and why? How much oil can individual fossil fuel producers extract without compromising global climate targets? Why is gender equality in the workplace so hard to achieve? She uses modelling as a tool to connect ideas across traditional disciplinary boundaries to promote innovation and tackle complex, open-ended problems. Professor O'Brien is the former Director of Teaching and Learning in the UQ School of Chemical Engineering. She has won numerous awards for teaching students critical thinking and other transferrable skills needed to lead the shift from the current "take-make-waste" paradigm to genuine sustainability. She teaches new academics to take a practical, student-centred approach to teaching called "Ruthless Compassion", and she is passionate about finding creative solutions to work-family conflict.

A/Prof Liza O'Moore's research interests are in: reinforced and prestressed concrete design, concrete technology, time-dependent properties of concrete and durability of concrete structures.

Liza has over 30 years experience in structural and concrete design. After graduation Liza joined a local consulting firm and worked mainly in the areas of industrial and commercial structural design. Upon completion of her postgraduate research, she joined the Civil Structures group in the Brisbane office of Arup. During her time with Arup as a senior engineer and then associate, she was involved in a number of reinforced concrete design projects undertaken both locally and overseas. In January 2001, Liza joined the academic staff in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland. She is currently teaching in the areas of reinforced concrete and concrete design and applied mechanics. Her research interests are in the areas of creep and shrinkage of concrete structures, durability, high performance concretes, the performance of industrial slabs and pavements and geopolymer concretes. She is a Life Member of the Concrete Institute of Australia and was a member of the National Council (2007-2015) and National Executive (2009-2015). Liza served as the first female National President of the Concrete Institute of Australia (2011-2013).

Liza is also active in the area of Engineering Education. She teaches into first and second year engineering and leads the final year capstone design project. Liza has research interests in the areas of transition and preparedness for first year, graduate competencies and large class teaching. Liza has been awarded School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Awards in 2005 and 2006, EAIT Faculty Teaching Award 2007, and a special EAIT Faculty Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching (2012). In 2010 Liza was awarded a UQ Award for Teaching Excellence, which was followed in 2011 by an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. She was a project team member on the OLT funded “Get set for success: using online self-assessments to motivate first year engineering students”. Liza has undertaken interdisciplinary research in the areas of competence assurance and the use of simulators for CRC – Rail.

Liza has also provided advice on accreditation of VET sector Associate Degrees, and in the curriculum development for new BE (Civil) programs at tertiary level. In 2014 Liza was part of the expert team of national and international experts in Civil Engineering Education advising Charles Sturt University on the development of Australia’s first graduate entry five year Engineering Master’s program commencing in 2016.

Adrian Oehmen is an Associate Professor in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland. He leads research in the area of bioprocess engineering, particularly focussing on wastewater treatment and resource recovery. His research interests include enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR or BioP), metabolic modelling, biopolymer (polyhydroxyalkanoate – PHA) production, micropollutant removal and greenhouse gas (N2O) assessment and mitigation. He also focusses on other aspects of bioprocess engineering, including microbial encapsulation, bioprocess modelling and food and beverage applications. He has published more than 100 papers in international scientific journals, led or collaborated on more than 30 research projects (many with industry). He is active within the International Water Association (IWA), serving on specialist group and conference committees and is an Associate Editor of Water Research.

Associate Professor Italo Onederra serves as the Director of the Centre for Future Autonomous Systems and Technologies (FAST) at the School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering. He leads a research group focused on improving mineral extraction methods with reduced environmental impact through advanced preconditioning and fragmentation techniques.

Recognised internationally as a specialist in explosives and blasting engineering technology, Italo holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) with honours from the University of Melbourne, and a Master of Engineering Science and PhD from the University of Queensland. With over 25 years of R&D experience and consulting work in Australia, South America, Africa, and Europe, Italo has demonstrated exceptional leadership and impact in both research and industry. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, contributed to technical reports and books, and co-invented novel nitrogen oxide-free explosives based on hydrogen peroxide. Italo is also known for developing fragmentation modelling techniques, which have been incorporated into commercial software used globally by industry and academia, as well as pioneering the use of physics engines in blast movement modelling to improve ore control and maximise recovery.

Dr Lisa Ottenhaus is a structural engineer and senior lecturer, with expertise in design of timber connections. Lisa's research interests encompass the theory, analysis, design and performance of timber connections, including detailing for timber durability. Lisa and their team research offsite timber construction using both engineered wood products and light timber framing, design for adaptability, disassembly and reuse, and reversible timber joints.

Lisa holds a PhD from the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the seismic performance of connections in tall timber buildings, a Masters of Science in structural engineering from Delft University of Technology, and a Bachelor of Science from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

As part of the ARC Advance Timber Hub, Lisa co-leads Node 3 on Extending Building Life, and project 1.2 on timber connections. Lisa is a steering committee member of WG1 a COST Action Helen (Holistic Design of Taller Timber Buildings), and a founding member of the International Association for Mass Timber Construction.

Lisa is a committee member of TM-010 (Australian Standards technical committee on Timber Structures and Framing), and a steering committee member of the Australian Timber Construction Educator Network.

Lisa has been an invited speaker at the prefabAUS Offsite conference, the Brisbane Architecture and Design Festival, the International Holzbau Forum (Innsbruck, Austria) and has been interviewed by the Guardian, ABC Radio, Built Offsite, and the Holzmagazin.

Dr Antonio Padilha L. Bo completed the BEng and MSc at the University of Brasília, Brazil, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and he was awarded the PhD from the University of Montpellier, France, in 2011. From 2011 to 2019, he has been a tenured assistant professor in electrical engineering at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, where he coordinated Project EMA (Empowering Mobility and Autonomy), which is one of the teams that took part in the Cybathlon competition in 2016 and 2020. He has co-authored over 75 peer-reviewed publications, including awards from societies such as IFAC, IFESS, and MICCAI.

Over the past ten years, Dr Bo has been engaged in research projects concerning the development of technology dedicated to healthcare, particularly in the design of systems to be directly used by a patient in rehabilitation or assistive settings. Every effort featured strong experimental work and was conducted in close collaboration with local rehabilitation centers. In his work, tools from neuroengineering, robotics, control, virtual reality, and instrumentation are often integrated to create devices and algorithms to sense and control human motion. For instance, he has used wearable sensors to segment and estimate parameters of human movement in real-time, a technique that may lead to novel rehabilitation protocols. More importantly, his work has also focused on developing closed-loop control strategies for electrical stimulation applications and prosthetic/orthotic devices. Some examples include systems based on superficial electrical stimulation to enable persons with spinal cord injury to exercise using the lower limbs (e.g. in cycling or rowing) and to attenuate the effects of pathological tremor in essential tremor and Parkinson's Disease.

His long-term research goal is to develop and evaluate the use of noninvasive technology, including electrical stimulation, robotics, virtual reality, and wearable devices, for improving rehabilitation and assistance for persons with motor disabilities.

Career Summary: 2009: PhD, University of Michigan, USA with training in cardiac physiology, modelling myocardial ischemia in vivo and in vitro, and development of therapeutic approaches for myocardial ischemia; 2009–2015: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Washington, Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, USA with training in stem cell biology, genomics, genome editing, and cell therapeutics for ischemic heart disease; 2015–current: Group Leader, University of Queensland (UQ), Institute for Molecular Bioscience; 2022-current: Associate Professor, UQ; 2018–2021 and 2023-2026: National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow. Dr. Palpant’s research team has expertise in human stem cell biology, computational genomics, and cardiac physiology, which enables them to translate outcomes from cell biology and genomics to disease modelling, drug discovery, and preclinical modelling.

Julie’s research is mainly focussed on gas-water-rock core reactivity at reservoir conditions using experimental, field, and geochemical modelling techniques. Recent projects have been in the application of carbon dioxide geological storage in which CO2 is captured and stored in formations generally contained by low permeability cap-rock. The safe containment of the injected CO2 and the potential changes to rock porosity, permeability, and water quality should be determined. Recent and current projects with a focus on a demonstration site in the Surat Basin (Precipice Sandstone) include the impacts of impurity or acid gases present in industrial CO2 streams (collaboration with D. Kirste, SFU), inducing carbonate precipitation (in collaboration with S. Golding), and understanding dissolved metal sources and fate. Julie has also worked closely with the CO2CRC, CTSCo, Glencore, SEAL, the NSW government, CI-NSW, and ANLEC R&D, and provided expert opinion to the Queensland Government, and input to Environmental Impacts Assessments.

Julie is currently working with landholders, the QLD regional government, RDMW, councils and industry to understand the sources of methane in aquifers of the Great Artesian Basin, especailly those overlying coal seam gas reservoirs (CSG) (with Arrow Energy, SANTOS, APLNG, H. Hoffman, K, Baublys).

Other projects include gas-water-rock or acid-rock reactivity that modify nano-porosity and gas flow in gas or oil bearing shales.

Julie Pearce graduated with an MCHEM (Hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of York, UK. She then moved to the University of Bristol to complete a Ph.D. in 2007 focusing on laser spectroscopic studies to understand the detailed reaction dynamics of atmospheric processes. From 2007 – 2009 she accepted a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, hosted at Nagoya University, Japan. There she measured delta 13C and delta 18O isotopic signatures of CO2 simultaneously in real time in the atmosphere using a laser spectroscopic technique to understand anthropogenic and biogenic sources of CO2. After taking a career break to travel in 15 countries in Asia, she moved to Brisbane in 2010 where she is enjoying the surrounding natural beauty of Queensland.

See Google Scholar page

Research achievements other than research outputs

Dr Pedroso is an expert in numerical and computer methods for solid mechanics and materials modelling. He has a strong background in tensor calculus, partial differential equations, computational geometry, and computer programming, among other topics. Dr Pedroso has been developing methods to model the mechanical behaviour of porous media including mixtures of solids, liquids and gases. This expertise is now being carried over to modelling metals. He has also recently been engaged in machine learning, artificial intelligence, general nonlinear multi-constrained/multi-objective optimisation and structural reliability. Dr Pedroso has also developed new methods in molecular dynamics to model solids and granular assemblies. Therefore, his research work is quite multi-disciplinary but revolves around computational engineering and mechanics.

Journal Reviews

Dr Pedroso is an expert in computational mechanics for porous media and optimisation and is reviewing papers for top journals such as Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Nature: Scientific Reports, Computers and Geotechnics, Geotechnique Letters, Advances in Engineering Software, Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE, Computer Physics Communications, International Journal of Plasticity, Soils and Foundations, Advances in Structural Engineering, Engineering Structures, among others.

Research Grants Reviewer

Dr Pedroso is an Australian Research Council (ARC) reviewer for DPs, DEs and LPs. He is also a reviewer for th Hong Kong Research Grants Council HK-RGC

Conference Services

Dr Pedroso has organised the 1st Workshop on New Advances on Computational Geomechanics in Australia in 2008 and the 5th Workshop on New Frontiers in Computational Geotechnics in 2010. Both in Brisbane, Australia.

Dr. Huadong Peng is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), University of Queensland from Jan 2024. He is also a Future Academic Leader with Australia’s Food and Beverage Accelerator (FaBA), and a group leader at UQ's Biosustainability Hub. He earned his PhD from Monash University in 2018, followed by postdoctoral training at Imperial College London and the Technical University of Denmark until 2023. Prior to his PhD, he received his Master Degree from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013 and a Bachelor Degree from China Three Gorges University in 2010. Additionally, he worked as a research associate at Novozymes China from November 2013 to January 2015.

Currently, Dr Peng leads the Yeast Engineering and Synthetic Biology (YESBio) research group, focusing on sustainable biomanufacturing through synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. He works closely with Prof. Esteban Marcellin. His expertise includes developing innovative synthetic biology tools (gene assembly, CRISPR genome editing and biosensor), advanced microbial cell factories, and synthetic microbial communities, as well as optimizing metabolic pathways to improve the production of high-value compounds for use in food ingredients, biochemicals, biofuels, and biomedicines.

Dr Peng has secured A$544K in funding, including grants, awards and scholarships. Dr. Peng has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals like Nature Microbiology, Nature Chemical Biology, PNAS, etc., H-index 15 (google scholar Sep 2024). He is a recipient of the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad and has delivered invited presentations at major international conferences.

Dr. Peng is also an Associate Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology (CoESB) and actively contributes to the scientific community through editorial roles such as The Innovation, BioDesign Research and mLife.

Dr Peng is looking for highly motivated Honours, Master and Ph.D. students, and highly competitive full scholarship may be provided. The University of Queensland ranks in the top 50 as measured by the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities. The University also ranks 45 in the QS World University Rankings, 52 in the US News Best Global Universities Rankings, 60 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and 55 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities.

Yongjun Peng is a Professor at School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland. He obtained his PhD under the supervision of Profs Stephen Grano, John Ralston and Daniel Fornasiero from the Ian Wark Research Institute of the University of South Australia in 2002. This study was part of a large international project, AMIRA P260C regarding grinding and flotation chemistry in fine particle flotation with application of complementary solution and surface analytical techniques. He studied the galvanic interactions between grinding media and base metal sulphide minerals, mineral oxidation and dissolution, the activation of iron sulphide minerals, and surface contamination in improving mineral flotation. He was the 1st researcher developing the well-known Magotteaux Mill which allows the control of chemical reactions during grinding. His research work also guides the industry to use high chromium media in primary grinding mills and inert grinding media in regrinding mills to minimize the negative effect of galvanic interactions.

From 2002 to 2006, Yongjun Peng worked at the COREM Research Centre in Canada which is supported by the Canadian government and eleven international member mining companies. During his time there, he developed technologies for member mining companies to improve base metal, gold and niobium flotation. He was awarded an expert certificate for five years in Canada by the Quebec government, and also awarded NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada)-Industry Research Fellowship. From 2006 to 2009, Yongjun Peng worked at BHP Billiton Perth Technology Centre in Australia as a Senior Metallurgist/Engineer responsible for fine nickel flotation in saline water, gold and uranium processing. He won a major BHP Billiton internal prize in 2008.

Yongjun Peng’s current research at the University of Queensland focuses on froth flotation and the underlying solution chemistry, colloid/surface chemistry and electrochemistry. In addition to solving problems for individual companies, the underlying theme is the particle interaction taking place during the processing of low quality and complex energy and mineral resources with low quality water to address key challenges that face the resource industry today. His research is supported by the Australia Research Council, the Australian Coal Industry’s Research Program (ACARP) and the resource industry. In 2022, he was awarded the ACARP Research Excellent Award recognising research and leadership excellence through long term commitment and impact.

New technologies developed

Depressing hydrophobic gangue minerals in the flotation of sulphide ores. Traditional prefloat to float and remove hydrophobic gangue minerals also floats and removes sulphide minerals due to the collectorless flotation of sulphide minerals upon surface oxidation. This technology introduces a prefloat cleaner stage where sulphide minerals recovered to the prefloat concentrate are depressed and separated from other hydrophobic gangue minerals at a low pulp potential using innovative reducing agents which do not affect the natural floatability of sulphide minerals. The prefloat cleaner tailings are then fed back to the main sulphide flotation circuit. Traditional reducing agents applied in prefloat require high consumptions and also interfere with the downstream flotation. Flotation tests using chalcopyrite and organic carbon show that the new approach can reduce the loss of chalcopyrite in the prefloat by over 40% without affecting the rejection of naturally hydrophobic gangue. This technology is commercialized by ALS.

GoldRecover. This technology improves the gold flotation recovery from comminution circuit and flotation circuit in gold processing operations using innovative chemicals to remove iron contamination from gold surfaces. Iron contamination prevents the adsorption of collectors on mineral surfaces. Based on a copper-gold ore, this technology achieved a gold recovery up to 30% and a copper recovery up to 12% higher than the base line. Based on a pyrite-gold ore, this technology achieved a gold recovery up to 10% higher than the base line. This technology is commercialized by Kinetic Group Worldwide.

Counteracting the adverse effect of cyanide in flotation. Cyanide added to depress gangue minerals or existing in process water can depress the flotation of sulphide and precious minerals. Cyanide can also complex with metal ions and form metal cyanide which can depress or activate mineral flotation depending on the pulp chemistry. The new technology involves the modification of pulp chemistry to make metal cyanide activate sulphide and precious minerals in flotation. This technology has been applied in the sponsor’s flotation plant to improve gold and silver recoveries since 2012.

Regrinding-flotation pre-treatment prior to CIL leaching. This technology has been applied in the sponsor’s plant to improve copper and gold recoveries while reducing cyanide consumption since 2012.

New sulphidisation to improve the flotation of oxidized minerals. Traditional sulphidisation suffers from drawbacks such as low efficiency, low pulp potential with a high reagent consumption and difficulty to sulphidise some minerals. The new sulphidisation we developed from the ARC Linkage Project LP160100619 supported by Newmont and Newcrest is conducted at higher pulp potential. Based on a stockpile copper ore, the new sulphidisation improves the copper recovery from 76% (base line) to 93% with even higher copper grade. Based on a stockpile pyritic ore containing gold, the new sulphidisation improves the recovery of total S from 48% (base line) to 68% and the recovery of sulphide S from 84% (base line) to 92%.

De-aerating froth products (patented technologies). Persistent froth in flotation concentrates presents operational challenges in downstream processing such as pumping in sumps and dewatering in filters and thickeners. In sumps where flotation concentrates are pumped to the dewatering process, the liquid level sensors often fail to detect the persistent froth which may lead to flooding of the processing area or even the entire plant. In dewatering to separate the solids in the concentrate from water, persistent froth significantly reduces both thickening and filtration efficiencies. The accumulated persistent froth floating on top of thickeners can also limit the capacity of the plant. Two types of physical froth de-aerators have been developed, one based on physical forces and another based on pressure changes. The de-aerator using physical forces is suitable for destabilising froth in sumps and filters, while the de-aerator using pressure changes is suitable for destabilising froth in thickeners. These technologies are commercialized by DADI (AUSTRALIA) Engineering Company.

Rapid measurement of coal oxidation (patented technology). This technology can be used in the plant to determine the degree of coal oxidation in natural environments within 5 minutes. The solvens used are environmentally friendly. Based on the degree of coal oxidation, a ratio of non-polar collector to polar collector can be determined to maximise the coal flotation while minimizing reagent consumptions. At one coal preparation plant this technology demonstrates an improvement of 5%-26% increase in the recovery of coal (based on applying optimised ratios of oily and polar collectors for the measured degree of coal oxidation).This technology is commercialized by interchem.

Apparatus and method for emulsifying oily collectors for use in flotation (patented technology). Oily collectors are widely used in the flotation of various commodities. Due to their low solubility in water, a large amount of oily collectors has to be used with a long conditioning time. A number of studies has demonstrated that chemical emulsifiers can significantly improve the efficiency of oily collectors by reducing their droplets. However, the application of chemical emulsifiers in flotation plants is limited due to their strong frothing abilities which can cause various problems. We have developed apparatus to physically emulsify oily collectors to droplets with a size ranging from 12.2 µm to 0.7 µm and found that the flotation performance increases with the decrease of droplet size until an optimal droplet size. Droplets smaller than the optimal size is not beneficial to flotation. The apparatus has a low equipment cost and low maintenance. Based on the test work on five different coal samples from 3 Australian coal preparation plants, the emulsified diesel could increase the yield by 2.5 to 15.3% at the same product ash content while reducing the diesel consumption by 97,412 L to 304,941 L per annum. This technology is commercialized by DADI (AUSTRALIA) Engineering Company.

Dr. Ove A. Peters joined the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, in 2020 after faculty positions in Heidelberg, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as at the University of California, San Francisco. Most recently, he was the founding director of the postgraduate endodontic program at the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco, a professor with tenure and the Chair of the Department of Endodontics at that school.

Dr. Peters has wide-ranging clinical and research expertise and has published more than 200 manuscripts related to endodontic technology and biology. He has authored two books and contributed to several leading textbooks in dentistry; he also is an associate editor for the International Endodontic Journal as well as the Australian Endodontic Journal, an academic editor for PLOS One and serves on the review panel of multiple other journals. Among others awards, Dr Peters has received the Hans Genet Award of the European Society of Endodontology and more recently the Louis I. Grossman Award of the American Association of Endodontists. He is a Diplomate of the ABE, a member of OKU and a Fellow of the International and American Colleges of Dentistry.

Research Interests

• Advanced Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine 1.Advanced drug delivery methods (controlled release dosage forms such as tablets, granules and microspheres) 2. Biomaterials as next generation adjuvant for vaccine delivery 3. Surface modified nanomaterials (Silica, Polymer, Liposomes) 4. Programmable nanoparticales for oral drug delivery and targeting 5. Translocation of nanoparticles after oral drug delivery (In-vitro and In-vivo)

Qualifications

• Master of Pharmaceutical Science, Gujarat University
• Bachelor of Pharmacy, Gujarat University

Dr Portmann's research interests are in the area of Computer Networks and Information Security.

Dr Portmann received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich in 2003. His research interests are in overlay and Peer-to-peer networks and network security.

Employment History:

2013 - present Associate Professor ITEE/UQ

2009 – 2013 Senior Lecturer ITEE/UQ

2004 – 2008 Lecturer ITEE/UQ

2003 – 2004 Research Manager, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW

2002 – 2003 Senior Research Officer, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW