STUDENT DETAILS
Neels le Roux (GRADUATED)
Project
Supervisor
Cornelius Johannes (Neels) le Roux obtained the MSc Chemistry degree in 2007 at the North-West University and in 2013 started working at Hydrogen South Africa’s Infrastructure Centre of Competence at the Potchefstroom campus of the North-West University.
In his thesis, Complexation of palladium(ll) with monovalent anionic ligands – a spectrophotometric investigation, he investigated the binding of thiocyanate, chloride and bromide as well as the mixed binding of chloride and bromide respectively with hydroxide to the palladium central atom. Apart from the chloride system, the scientific community has never determined this data and his work has been pioneering in that full sets of formation constants were determined for these complexes. The known data set for the chloride system has furthermore been improved on. Knowledge of this data is important as it allows the design of new and improved processes for the hydrometallurgical recovery of palladium, which is one of the noble metals mined and produced in South Africa. The experimental technique that he used was furthermore unique in that, for the first time, a spectrophotometer and double buret autotitrator were linked, programmed and fully automated to run the experiment and obtain the required data without any operator intervention. This has led to the publication of three peer-reviewed articles in internationally acclaimed journals.
Promotor/Promoter: Prof RJ Kriek