Dr. Thandazile Moyo is an assistant professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State and a co-funded faculty in the Materials Research Institute (MRI). She is experienced in the hydrometallurgical processing of gold and base metals, electronic waste recycling, circular economy of metals, and science policy on artisanal and small-scale mining and electronic waste recycling. Her research interests include developing flowsheets and testing green technology for metal recovery from primary and secondary resources, focusing on the long-term impacts of mineral extraction. She studies fundamental leach mechanisms and seeks to understand factors that drive and limit mineral and metal leaching reactions. She is passionate about the sustainable development of mineral resources and conducts research on the technological challenges of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and the sector's contributions to sustainability and sustainable development.
Before she joined Penn State, Moyo completed her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Cape Town. She worked as a researcher, focused on flowsheet development and testing for metal recovery from waste PCBs, and co-developed and taught courses on sustainability in minerals extraction at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
- Flow sheet development, testing and associated LCA analysis, for material recovery from end-of-life/end-of-use Li-ion batteries.
- Metal recovery from, and CO2 sequestration in Blast Furnace slags.
- Metal recovery from waste printed circuit boards.
- Copper hydrometallurgy; extraction from chalcopyrite and from electronic waste.