Professor Silvana Luyckx is as rare as some of the hard materials she and her team of postgraduates are developing at the University of the Witwatersrand.
The Italian-born, Somalia-raised member of the department of metallurgy is fiercely proud of South Africa and not afraid to challenge the bastions of academia with her forthright views on research and its role in her adopted homeland.
Her project — the research and development of hard materials for use in global industry — has been her passion for 40 years and has seen her progressively improving the quality of substances such as tungsten carbide.
Luyckx came to Wits as a graduate of the University of Milan to do a PhD in hard materials. She ended up staying for a lifetime and making the project her life’s work.
Humble in spite of her achievements, she downplays her part in this particular success story and points to the teams of postgraduates who have been part of the project over the years as the true heroes of the piece.
‘We are supremely fortunate to have students of this calibre,” she says, as she explains the rudiments of her work and the importance of hard materials. ‘Hard materials are tremendously important to industry of any kind. High in hardness means low on wear. Our research here at Wits is instrumental in the fight against wear.”
Luyckx goes on to explain that wear is an inevitable factor in everyday life. It affects everything from washing machines and kitchen appliances to multimillion-rand industrial equipment. Developing harder materials helps to reduce wear.
But her project means much more when viewed in a global light. It focuses attention on South Africa’s ability to produce materials that are equal to if not better than those of international competitors. This, in turn, helps to raise international awareness of our country’s products and places South Africa in the global spotlight as a centre of industrial expertise.
‘Because of their importance in industries such as mining, there are many companies producing hard materials in South Africa,” Luyckx explains. ‘The aim of this project is therefore to help South African producers of hard materials compete internationally.”
The project is sponsored jointly by industry and the Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (Thrip).
For every rand donated by industry, Thrip donates a rand, something that Luyckx is at pains to laud.
‘Where else in the developing world can you find sponsorship like this?” she asks. ‘South Africa is leading the way in research as a result.”
Luyckx feels that research projects in South Africa should be relevant to industry to be successful. She adds that with industry partnering the projects there is certainty that money is being spent on something worthwhile and of practical use.
She points to the main sponsor of her project, De Beers, as a case in point. ‘Our initial focus was on tungsten carbide and our main initial sponsor was Boart Longyear, part of the Anglo group. Now with research focusing on other materials, De Beers is looking at the development of new, hard cutting tools and has invested heavily in the project.”
Luyckx points out that the investment isn’t only monetary, and that Thrip and the many and various industry partners involved in its projects are building a brighter future for South Africa as a whole, improving its international standing and reputation as a centre of industry and innovation.
Certainly, in her project’s case, industry partners are getting double their money’s worth, as they are helping to fund valuable research into new materials while training future employees.
De Beers, for example, used to sponsor students across the world. Now the company is concentrating all of its efforts on South Africa, primarily at Wits in Luyckx’s department, where most of the students are doing postgraduate work sponsored by De Beers.
While centred in the department of metallurgy, the project also involves other departments, such as chemistry and physics, where research crosses scientific borders and processes include these spheres of expertise.
In addition, there is collaboration with other universities in South Africa, such as the University of Port Elizabeth, with what Luyckx describes as its ‘magnificent” electron microscopy facilities, and the Technikon Witwatersrand. There are international collaborations too, specifically with Germany, for which the project is developing wood cutting tools. Sweden too is involved, as is France. This level of collaboration helps to spread a team spirit among project members, and represents a joining of forces for the benefit of the South African industry.
‘There is no room for empire building any more,” says Luyckx. ‘We are all on the same team, working for South Africa’s future.”
And helping South African companies in the process. For example, Powder Industries are heavily involved in the project. The company assists in providing the raw materials for research in the form of components they manufacture. In the process, Powder Industries gets feedback from the project on the quality of the materials being supplied and how they compare internationally, helping the company to improve its product and compete better in the global market.
In some areas of the hard materials industry South Africa is actually leading the international field. South Africa is the largest global producer of vanadium and ruthenium, and the Thrip project has helped improve the value and desirability of both materials.
Vanadium is actively mined in South Africa, but there were previously not enough applications to use the total amount produced. However, it has been implemented in the project with great success, to the extent that the global hard materials industry is now taking notice of its properties and increasing its demand. Similarly, ruthenium — produced in platinum mining — has produced great results in the project’s research and is in high demand overseas. The result is that the intrinsic value of the two metals has increased, which improves the international reputation of South Africa’s resources.
And of course, a happy by-product of the project’s success is that Wits, through equipment bought with the help of the Thrip and industry sponsorship, has become the leading centre for powder metallurgy — the type of metallurgy used to produce hard materials.
This equipment is not just reserved for research use, being available to industry for the purpose of making and testing materials. An example of this is a small furnace, imported from the United States at a cost of R1-million, which is the only one of its kind in South Africa. The furnace heats materials to a temperature of 2 200°C at a pressure of 210 MPa. It was bought with sponsorship money from De Beers and Thrip and is essential for the project’s research.
Luyckx is justifiably proud of the project’s success and achievements.
‘There is a great tendency for countries to pour money into research in areas it has no previous experience in. In South Africa we are lucky that the government realises that we must capitalise on our strengths and invest in research in areas we have experience in, such as areas related to the mining industry,” she says, adding that by concentrating research funding on projects that address the needs of its industries, South Africa has achieved global leadership status in these fields and has, literally, gone from strength to strength.
And as a cherry on top of this icing, Wits is hosting the African Materials Conference this December. This represents an opportunity for the continent’s top materials minds to get together and swop notes and identify speres in which it is worth doing research in Africa.