Critical and Rare Earth Elements

Dr. Abhilash is a Senior Scientist in the Secondaries and Resource Utilization Group of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur, and Assistant Professor, AcSIR (Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research)-NML, India. He earned a Bachelor's degree in microbiology from Nagpur (RTM) University, a Postgraduate degree specializing in mineral biotechnology from Bangalore University, and a PhD (Engineering) from Jadavpur University. Dr. Abhilash works in the area of hydrometallurgy, biohydrometallurgy, mineral bio-beneficiation and recycling of secondaries and WEEEs for extraction of base, critical and strategic metal recovery. He has participated in 30 R&D funded projects, has 20 scientific awards, author & co-author in 75 research papers in national & int. journals, 1 authored book, 3 edited books, 2 compendium volumes, 6 book chapters, active editorial board member in 2 peer-reviewed scientific journals, active reviewer in 20 peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is a member of several nationally and internationally recognized societies and professional organizations in the field of microbiology, minerals, metals, materials and environment.

Professor Ata Akcil (PhD-Eng.) is a professionally registered engineer with over 30 years of academic and industrial experience in critical raw materials, hydrometallurgy, environmental mining management, cyanide management and recycling. He has worked and developed hydro-and-bio-hydrometallurgical technologies for precious, base and REEs metal recovery. He is the Head of the Mineral-Metal Recovery and Recycling (MMR&R) Research Group, SDU, Isparta, Turkey. He is also a technical senior expert for critical and strategical raw materials and resource recovery, and member of Operational Group, Euro. Innov. Partnership on Raw Materials (European Commission). His global assignments as coordinator, researcher, consultant, expert, reviewer and examiner have included projects in Europe (Germany, Italy, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Montenegro and Belgium), RSA, Canada, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Jordan, India, Chile, Sweden and Turkey. He has participated in 50 R&D funded projects, has 25 scientific awards, author & co-author in 200 research papers in national & int. journals, 1 book, 10 book chapters, 60 International proceedings papers (5,000 citations; h-index: 30; i10-index: 59), active editorial board member in 5 peer-reviewed scientific journals, active reviewer in 60 peer-reviewed scientific journals. He has evaluated several research proposals (over150 proposals) and peer-reviewed papers (over 1,500 papers) in his area of expertise.