Vladimiros G. Papangelakis

Vlad Papangelakis

Professor, Dipl. Eng. (Athens), M.Eng., Ph.D. (McGill), P. Eng., FCIM, FCAE
Principal Investigator, Aqueous Process Engineering and Chemistry Group
Senior Industrial Research Chair in Water and Sustainable Extractive Metallurgy
Room: MY871 | Tel.: 416-978-1093 | Email: vladimiros.papangelakis@utoronto.ca

Memberships

Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM)
Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE)
The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS)
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Technical Chamber of Greece (TCE)
Hellenic Canadian Academic Association of Ontario (HCAAO)

Research Interests

Aqueous and Environmental Process Engineering

The mining and metals industry is faces the need to develop novel technology that addresses the requirements for sustainability in the extraction and processing of natural mineral resources. The Aqueous Process Engineering and Chemistry (APEC) group is providing solutions in the recovery and reuse of process water as well as in the processing of complex mineral resources. This is achieved by studying the fundamentals and practice of aqueous process chemistry and engineering to recover and produce metals or metallic products by hydrometallurgical routes. The research focuses on developing novel chemical processing ideas to:

  • Treat increasingly complex mineral deposits with low metal content including wastes, for the recovery and separation of base, precious and critical rare earth metals;
  • Reduce the environmental impact (on water, land, and air), as well as minimize the use of energy and chemicals including water;

Specific project examples are:

  1. Process water purification by forward osmosis and freeze crystallization: Removal of soluble salts by lower energy consuming technologies compared to reverse osmosis and evaporation. Introduces low-cost bleed of salts and process water recycling to minimise fresh water intakes.
  2. Bio-hydrometallurgy of sulfidic wastes for base metal recovery, and remediation:Bioleaching of sulfidic wastes to recover pay metals and discharge the acid-mine-drainage toxicity of tailings.
  3. Aqueous chemistry and recovery of rare earth elements: Ion exchange leaching of ionic clays and production of a mixed oxide product by novel process configurations.
  4. Development of sensors for acid and redox monitoring in aqueous streams at high temperatures: In situ monitoring by robust sensors in a variety of slurry streams in temperatures ranging from room to those in autoclaves
  5. Chemical modeling of complex aqueous electrolyte solutions: Development of dedicated databases for modeling the chemistry (i.e., speciation, solubility, vapor-liquid equilibria) of salts and other compounds in complex multicomponent process solutions within very wide temperature ranges.

Selected Publications

Georgios Kolliopoulos, Eric Shum, and Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Forward Osmosis and Freeze Crystallization as Low Energy Water Recovery Processes for a Water-Sustainable Industry,” Environ. Process. (2018),DOI: 10.1007/s40710-018-0316-5

Igor Guzman, Steven J. Thorpe & Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Redox potential measurement during pressure oxidation (POX) of a refractory gold ore,” Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, (2017), DOI: 10.1080/00084433.2017.1386363

Srinath Garg, Kurtis Judd, Radhakrishnan Mahadevan, Elizabeth Edwards & Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Leaching characteristics of nickeliferous pyrrhotite tailings from the Sudbury,” Ontario area, Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly, (2017), 56:4, 372-381, DOI: 10.1080/00084433.2017.1361162

Igor Guzman, Steven J. Thorpe, Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Redox potential measurements in the H2SO4-FeSO4-Fe2(SO4)3-H2O system at high temperature using an Ir electrode,” Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, (2017), 799, 399-405.

Srinath Garg, Vladimiros Papangelakis, Elizabeth Edwards, Radhakrishnan Mahadevan, “Application of a Selective Dissolution Protocol to Quantify the Terminal Dissolution Extents of Pyrrhotite and Pentlandite From Pyrrhotite Tailings,” International Journal of Mineral Processing, (2017),158, 27-34.

Georgios Kolliopoulos, Michael Carlos, Timothy J. Clark, Amy M. Holland, Ding-Yu Peng, Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Chemical Modeling of the TMA-CO2-H2O System: A Draw Solution in Forward Osmosis for Process Water Recovery,” Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, (2017), 62(4), 1214-1222, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jced.6b00780

Ilya Perederiy and Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Why amorphous FeO-SiO2 slags do not acid-leach at high temperatures,” Journal of Hazardous Materials, 321 (2017), 737-744

Georgiana Moldoveanu and Vladimiros Papangelakis, “An overview of rare earth recovery by ion exchange leaching from ion-adsorption clays of various origins,” Mineralogical Magazine, (2016), 80(1), 63-76.

Nazanin Samadifard, Cheryl E. Devine, Elizabeth Edwards, Krishna Mahadevan, and Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Ferric sulphate leaching of pyrrhotite tailings between 30 to 55 °C,” Minerals, 5 (2015), 801–814; doi:10.3390/min5040526

Georgiana Moldoveanu and Vladimiros G. Papangelakis, “Strategies for calcium sulphate scale control in hydrometallurgical processes at 80 ºC,” Hydrometallurgy 157 (2015) 133–139 DOI: 10.1016/j.hydromet.2015.07.005

G.A. Moldoveanu, V.G. Papangelakis, “Recovery of rare earth elements adsorbed on clay minerals: II. Leaching with Ammonium Sulphate,” Hydrometallurgy 131–132 (2013) 158–166.

G.A. Moldoveanu, V.G. Papangelakis, “Recovery of rare earth elements adsorbed on clay minerals: I. Desorption mechanism,” Hydrometallurgy 117–118 (2012) 71–78.