Metal Recyling – virtual breakfast seminar

Our final Breakfast seminar of 2021 is covering the recycling of metals. It is now clear that our reliance on the earth’s primary resources, principally carbon, is having a severely detrimental effect on our environment. However some metals can also be difficult or expensive to obtain and more sustainable solutions are needed, including recycling of metals that are already in use. We have 3 speakers covering different aspects of metal reuse- from the drivers to sustainability to academic pursuits of new technologies.

Programme: 8th December 2021, 8.30-10.00

Prof Ian Scowen – Introductions

John Henry Looney (Sustainable Direction Ltd & University of Lincoln) – Recycling: follow the money

Liam Hunter (Inprotec Ltd) – The industrialisation and scale up of Lithium Ion Batteries (LIBs) in the UK

Jose Gonzalez-Rodriguez (University of Lincoln) – The uses of polymeric materials for the recycling of metals of interest

Ian Scowen – Closing Remarks

Speaker’s Biographies

John Henry Looney is an environmental consultant who has been working in the area since the early 1980s and is the author of the UK’s first carbon footprint in 1989.  He has worked on many materials reuse and recycling projects and energy from waste, including Innovate UK projects.  He was the first to invert the waste hierarchy too it seems.

Jose Gonzalez-Rodriguez holds degrees in both chemistry and biochemistry and a master degree in environmental sciences. His PhD is in analytical chemistry having developed research in this area for more than 19 years. He has over 75 publications and 40 communications to date and he has attracted funds of over £3.5M over this period. Jose is currently the Programme Leader of the Masters in Forensic Science at the University of Lincoln. He is member or Fellow of different Scientific Societies (RSC, ACS, SPIE, IUPAC, ISE) and evaluator and reviewer for different research bodies in Europe (EU, Italy, Finland, Czech Republic, Romania, Portugal, UK). He has recently chaired the Research Awarding Exercise in Finland for Analytical and Physical Chemistry and he is presently acting as Vice Chair in the Marie Curie Doctoral Training Networks.  Recent public engagement includes contributions to the Commons UK Science, Research and Technology Capability and Influence in Global Disease Outbreaks Committee in 2020 and participation on the COVID-19 outbreak expert survey and the House of Lords’ report on Life beyond COVID-19: What are experts concerned about?