Stellenbosch University
Welcome to Stellenbosch University
Prizewinner of SA Young Persons’ Lecture Competition M. Mayne will go to World finals in Australia
Author: M Mayne
Published: 30/03/2018

​​Matthew Mayne, a student currently enrolled in a joint PhD program between Stellenbosch University (SU) and Université Jean Monnet (UJM) recently won a national lecture competition (http://www.iom3.org/world-lecture-competition). The Young Persons' Lecture Competition aims to “provide an atmosphere of friendly competition for young scientists and engineers in the disciplines of Materials, Minerals, Mining, Packaging, Clay Technology and Wood Science so that their presentation skills will improve whilst addressing a generalist but informed audience". This annual competition is held by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) Southern Africa and is open to students and graduates aged 28 or under in academia or industry. Participants are given 15 minutes in which to present their research to a generalist audience after which they receive questions from the audience and a panel of judges.

Regional heats for the competition were held at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) on the 22nd of June and Witwatersrand University (WITS) on the 23rd of June with the top 3 presenters from each heat progressing to the national finals on the 27th of June at St George's Club in Port Elizabeth. NMMU presented a strong force with a number of students from a REDISA-NMMU partnership presenting topics related to the recycling of waste tyres. This included finalists Sisonke Ketelo with her “Investigation of tyre-derived pyrolysis char for full/partial carbon black replacement" and Phuti Tsipa with his “Devulcanization method for waste tyre crumbs using low cost chemicals". Bridget Nomshado Zuma of WITS claimed third place by introducing us to Ruthenium a largely overlooked platinum group element (PGE) which could revolutionise our welding technologies, with her “Effect of Ru addition on the mechanical properties and microstructure of 316L austenitic stainless steel weld metal". While Oscar Tarique of the University of Pretoria (UP) sold us on an alternative for Portland cement concretes with his “FLY-ASH Based Ternary Alkali-activated materials cured under ambient conditions" grabbing second place.

In the end the prize went to Stellenbosch University student Matthew Mayne. His lecture “How do rocks melt? A question requiring both chemistry and thermodynamics" describes a cataclysmic world governed by simple laws and presents a new software tool (https://tinyurl.com/Rcrust) which will assist geologists in investigating the earth processes that form our planet. As the winner of the national competition, Matthew will represent South Africa when he competes in the Young Persons' World Lecture Competition to be held in Australia later this year.