The Council for Mineral Technology (Mintek) will host its annual Analytical Symposium on November 7 at the Mintek Auditorium in Johannesburg.

Mintelk will be collaborating with the South African Spectroscopic Society (SASS) on this symposium and hopes to reach a wider audience, which will ensure an exchange and transfer of knowledge among different stakeholders who will be present at the event.

“The collaboration with the SASS is expected to add value through a wider audience and the more varied bank of analytical knowledge and expertise that delegates will be exposed to,” says Mintek business development consultant Dhiroshnee Govender.

SASS president Rob McCrindle points out that, through the years, the SASS has had very active members who were also Mintek employees and the partnership has been able to advance spectroscopy in South Africa.

“When the SASS, after a few years of inactivity, relaunched again in 2012, we thought it prudent to reaffirm our ties with Mintek in [an effort to promote] analytical chemistry in mineralogical applications, where spectroscopy plays an integral role. Thus, we are pleased to be a cohost of the prestigious Mintek Symposium,” he states.

Mintek mentions that the SASS has through the years focused strongly on the atomic spectroscopies – such as XRF, ICP-OES and AAS – but has also started to focus more strongly on the promotion of the molecular spectroscopies, such as NMR, IR and Raman.

Through this partnership, Govender notes, delegates who should attend the symposium could range from suppliers of analytical equipment to personnel from the analytical chemistry industry and academics who are interested in the field of analytical chemistry.

“Analytical suppliers will be given the opportunity to showcase their new technology through exhibitions and paper presentations, while academics are also invited to present papers and participate in the symposium,” she concludes.