André van der Westhuizen
Qualifications
BEng Chem (Min Proc) Stellenbosch (1995), MSc UCT (2005)
BackgroundAndre van der Westhuizen is currently a Senior Research Officer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cape Town. He holds a BEng from the University of Stellenbosch and an MSc from the University of Cape Town. After graduation, Andre worked at Anglo Platinum for a few years as a plant metallurgist on their concentrators in Rustenburg. In 1997 he was appointed as a senior technical officer involved with undergraduate practical training of metallurgists in the Western Cape. In 2002, he joined MPTech, the technology transfer unit within the Centre for Minerals Research. In addition to research projects in the area of comminution, he was involved in numerous on-site process improvement projects in the areas of comminution and flotation. He became MPTech manager in 2016. In this role, Andre is co-ordinating commercial technology transfer projects in terms of industrial training programmes, on-site surveys, process optimization and design projects within the CMR. His main area of research is stirred milling and how it relates to downstream processing.
Employment
| 2016 – present | Senior Research Officer & MPTech Manager, MPTech, UCT |
| 2008 – 2016 | Senior Research Officer, MPTech, UCT |
| 2005 – 2008 | Research Officer, MPTech, UCT |
| 2002 – 2005 | Senior Technical Officer, MPTech, UCT |
| 1997 – 2002 | Senior Technical Officer, University of Cape Town |
| 1995 – 1996 | Metallurgist and Plant Metallurgist, RPM(R) Frank Concentrator |
Research Interests
Stirred milling, fine particle processing, tumbling mills, PEPT