Press Release: Solvent Extraction Awards 08.11.2017

Carl Hanson Medal Awarded to Geoffrey W. Stevens

Miyazaki, Japan, November 8, 2017 

Today the Carl Hanson Medal for a lifetime achievement in solvent extraction science and technology was awarded to Geoffrey W. Stevens, Laureate Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Melbourne. 

Besides extensive work in the fields of design procedures considering fluid dynamics of two phase flow in extraction columns, including coalescence and mass transfer, as well as engineering aspects of ion exchange and solvent extraction, Professor Stevens has contributed chapters to 20 books or collections and published more than 350 scientific papers. Most remarkable is that he is the lead author of the chapter “Extraction, Liquid-liquid” in the Kirk-Othmer, Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology. He was Secretary General of the International Solvent Extraction Committee (1996-2014) and Member of the International Ion Exchange Committee (2007-present) and has fostered scientific co-operations all over the world. 

Prof. Stevens started, after a short period in industry, in 1983 as lecturer at The University of Melbourne, progressing from Senior Lecturer to Reader, Associate Professor, Professor, Dean, Vice-President, President and became 2011 Laureate Professor of his University, a honour seldom bestowed. Memberships in committees of his University are far too many to be named. Noteworthy are his other scientific interests as Director of the “Particulate Fluids Processing Centre”, Project Leader of the “Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies” and Director of the “Peter Cook Centre for CCS Research”. 

He has been awarded a Senior Fullbright Scholarship (University of Minnesota) a DAAD scholarship (TU Munich), as well as a series of other fellowships (Australian Inst. Min. Met., IChemE, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering) and received the following awards: ICI Award, ExxonMobil Award of Excellence in Chemical Engineering, Top 100 Australia´s Most Influential Engineers (on three occasions), Dutch Royal Shell Chair of Chem. Eng. at Tsinghua University, China and the Patricia Grimshaw Award for Mentor Excellence.

He is editor or on the board of several scientific journals: The Journal of Solvent Extraction and Ion Exchange, Hydrometallurgy, Chemical Engineering Research and Design, Transactions of IChemE, Chemical Engineering Journal, Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, International Scholarly Research Network Chemical Engineering and Separation and Purification Technology.

He has been a committee member or chairman of various international conferences and his list of refereed contributions to scientific conferences counts more than 200 presentations. He has supervised about 80 PhD theses and is also a practitioner, albeit safely grounded in science and engineering. He is consultant for more than 40 companies and has been for some 20 years, a Chartered Practicing Metallurgist. 

Carl Hanson Medal  

The Carl Hanson medal was jointly instituted in 1986 by the Society of Chemical Industry (UK) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Chemisches Apparatewesen, Chemische Technik und Biotechnolgie e.V (DECHEMA, Germany) in memory of Professor Carl Hanson, who was Professor of Chemical Engineering at Bradford University U. at the time of his death in 1985.

Following graduation Professor Hanson joined the UK Atomic Energy Authority where he worked on mixer-settlers before joining the University of Bradford in 1960. There he continued his research developing and leading an internationally recognised teaching and research centre in the science and technology of liquid-liquid (solvent) extraction. In addition to publishing many scientific papers he published several seminal books including the Handbook of Solvent Extraction that he edited with Professors Lo and Baird in 1983. He also directed a series of continuing education courses on solvent extraction that were presented on a regular basis around the world. He was Secretary to the Organising Committee for the International Solvent Extraction Conference (ISEC'71) and when the International Committee for Solvent Extraction (ICSE) was established in 1974 he was the unanimous choice as General Secretary. Professor Hanson was also an active member of the Society of Chemical Industry and was a founder member of the Solvent Extraction Group (now the Separation Science and Technology Group) of the Society later becoming its Chairman. He was also a Vice-President of the Society.

Recipients of the Carl Hanson Medal:

  • ISEC 2014 Professor Yizak Marcus
  • ISEC 2011 Professor Mike Cox
  • ISEC 2008 Professor Jan Rydberg
  • ISEC 2005 Professor Yuri A. Zolotov
  • ISEC 2002 Dr Gordon Ritcey
  • ISEC 1999 Professor Douglas S. Flett
  • ISEC 1996 Professor Henry Freiser
  • ISEC 1993 Professor W. Jack McDowell
  • ISEC 1990 Dr Pier R. Danesi
  • ISEC 1988 Professor Aviezer Stevan Kertes (posthumous award)
  • ISEC 1986 Dr Arthur Naylor

ISEC Award goes to Erkki Paatero

The ISEC award was instituted in 2014 at the ISEC 2014 conference in Wurzburg by the International Committee of Solvent Extraction (ICSE) to recognise significant contributions which have advanced the wider field of solvent extraction (SX). The AWARD should encourage the pursuit of technological advances and innovative thinking in the SX industry thereby enhancing its professional status.

The 2017 ISEC Award was given to Prof. Paatero who has had first a long academic career first at the Åbo Akademi University and then as a full professor at the Lappeenranta University of Technology. In 2008 he joined Outotec Ltd which is a global provider of solvent extraction technology. At Outotec he was technology director with responsibility for new developments in hydrometallurgy. Erkki Paatero has been during his professional career involved in the utilization of the surface and colloid chemistry knowledge in metal extraction especially for cobalt, nickel and uranium. At ISEC 1988 in Moscow he gave his first presentation on that topic. He also worked with the technology developments related to the solvent extraction of copper. Research related the co-extraction of Fe and Mo has resulted in patented technology. His other achievements were the technology developments for base and precious metal separations in chloride media. Prof. Paatero is the main inventor in the patents related to a new Au SX process and a process for Cu and Zn extraction from chloride containing leach solutions. Another significant contribution is the development of a production process for sitostanol from[CP1]  pulp crude soap based on the separation of the compounds. To summarize his name is associated with 30 patents (plus more than 30 are protected) to that proves his significant contribution to the solvent extraction industry.


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