The symposium will honor the contributions of Dr. Rodney Jones to the field of pyrometallurgy and chromite processing in particular. Rodney is a chemical engineer and metallurgist with over 30 years of pyrometallurgical experience in a wide variety of processes that have been taken from concept to industrial implementation. Rodney is a Past President and an Honorary Life Fellow of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) – a professional institute that looks after the interests of almost 5000 mining and metallurgical engineers. Rodney has worked for over thirty years in the Pyrometallurgy Division at Mintek – an internationally recognized minerals research organization, based in Randburg, and is currently a Senior Technical Specialist there. Rodney holds a BSc (Eng) degree in chemical engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, a BA degree in logic and philosophy from the University of South Africa, and MSc (Eng) and PhD degrees in metallurgical engineering from Wits University. He has been a registered Professional Engineer since 1988.

Rodney has also been actively involved with several professional societies around the world, including the MetSoc of CIM in Canada where is still hold a position in the Executive committee of the Pyrometallurgy Section of MetSoc and has been a contributor and organizer of several symposia sponsored or co-sponsored by the Section. Most recently, Rodney was serving in the International Organizing Committee of Cu2019. Through his dedication to collaboration, Rodney has helped develop a greater bond between MetSoc of CIM and SAIMM.

His main research interests are in the field of computer simulation and design of high-temperature processes, and the development of thermodynamic software. He is the author of the Pyrosim software, for the steady-state simulation of pyrometallurgical processes. This software has been used in 22 countries around the world. Rodney has also been part of the team that developed processes for large-scale industrial application of direct-current arc furnace technology to the smelting of chromite in South Africa and Kazakhstan, ilmenite smelting in South Africa, cobalt recovery from slags in Zambia, battery recycling in Switzerland, and ferronickel production in New Caledonia. He is one of the inventors of the internationally patented ConRoast process – a more environmentally friendly way of recovering platinum group metals from ores that are otherwise very difficult to process.

The South African National Research Foundation (NRF) rated him in 2009 and 2015 as an ‘Internationally Acclaimed Researcher’. Rodney is also a member of the Board of Trustees for OneMine.org, and serves as the Chairman of the International Committee on Ferro-Alloys (ICFA). He has been a leading advocate for open publications to help disseminate technical information.

Rodney is also a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), the South African Institute of Chemical Engineers (SAIChE), and the South African Academy of Engineering, and a Member of the Royal Society of South Africa. He is an Honorary Adjunct Professor in the School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, and has previously held visiting positions at the Center for Pyrometallurgy, University of Missouri-Rolla, USA (1996), and at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia (2002-2003).

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Fairmont Royal
York Hotel,
Toronto

August 24-27, 2020

August 24-27, 2020