Mineral Technology Science Council, MINTEK

MINTEK is South Africa’s national mineral research organisation established in 1934. Specialising in minerals processing, extractive metallurgy and related areas, it is one of the leading organisations in R&D, technology development and piloting. It is home to the DSI/MINTEK Nanotechnology Innovation Centre also known as the NIC.

The NIC was established by the Department of Science and Innovation of South Africa and its research activities are aimed at utilisation of nanostructured materials and their applications in health (diagnostics, therapeutics), fabrication of electronic devices (i.e. bio- and chemical sensors), water (monitoring and remediation) and other related fields. It is fabrication of functional nanostructured materials and their applications in the health platform that is more relevant to the current SUNSHINE project.

Role in the project:

MINTEK will be mostly involved in the development of safe by material design strategies for functionalized metal (Au, Ag, Cu) MCNMs and nanofibers for used in medical diagnostics and therapy. In addition, MINTEK will provide these materials to WP2 for testing of the effectiveness of the safe by material design modifications as well as for providing case-study-specific information for modelling purposes (WP3), and for developing and testing the grouping and read-across approaches (WP4).

MINTEK will also participate to the project’s Industrial User Committee and will support the testing of the usability/feasibility of the SIA e-infrastructure from industry perspective (WP1). In addition, MINTEK will contribute to the stakeholder engagement, dissemination and exploitation activities of the project (WP8), with a focus on South Africa (WP7). MINTEK is the SUNSHINE partner leading our collaboration with South Africa (WP7).