Mr Sigit Prabowo is a joint PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington and University of Wollongong. His research investigates the hydrogen reduction of the NZ ironsand in a fluidized bed reactor. His main study focusing on the characterization of the reduction and sticking behaviour of the NZ ironsand during fluidization. He received his B.Sc. degree in Metallurgical Engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia. He then completed his M.Eng degree in Material Science and Engineering from Kumamoto University, Japan. His research experience includes hydrometallurgy, anodization, and material characterization using XRD and electron microscopy.

Damian is a Consulting Engineer with extensive experience in the gold, copper, lead, zinc, uranium and iron ore industries with particular emphasis on gold. Experience has been gained in plant operations feasibility studies, detailed design, construction and commissioning, and all unit operations. He is an internationally recognised specialist in Mineral Processing having worked in north and South America, South East Asia, Africa and Europe. The last 28 years working as a Consultant Metallurgist for mining, banking and engineering companies has provided a broad range of experience. Damian is a Registered Expert Witness and has been engaged on many cases.

Mr. Ao Zhang is currently a joint PhD candidate between Victoria University of Wellington and University of Wollongong. His research is mainly focusing on characterizing reduction behaviors of New Zealand Titanomagnetite ironsand in H2 at high temperatures and developing an analytical kinetic description of the reduction mechanism. This research has commercial importance for future designing H2-DRI processes for reducing New Zealand ironsand.

I graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology on March 2001. Now I’m associate professor of graduated school of environmental studies, Tohoku University. My main research fields are on the development of efficient and sustainable processes of metals production and recycling, (especially ironmaking), and on the development of porous metals, by applying high temperature metallurgical technologies. Now, I am project general manager of sintering process based on ISIJ.