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Dr Kristen Bremmell was interviewed in 2001 for the Interviews with Australian scientists series. By viewing the interviews in this series, or reading the transcripts and extracts, your students can begin to appreciate Australia's contribution to the growth of scientific knowledge.
The following summary of Bremmell's career sets the context for the extract chosen for these teachers notes. The extract describes some of the projects she has been involved in since finishing her PhD. Use the focus questions that accompany the extract to promote discussion among your students.
Kristen Bremmell was born in 1970 in Newcastle, New South Wales. In 1992 she received a BSc in chemistry from the University of Newcastle. As an undergraduate she worked from 1989-1993 as a laboratory technician for Carbon Consulting International. From 1991-1993 she was a research associate at BHP Research and was involved in a number of projects. She was awarded a BHP Research Honours Research Award, which she used at the University of Sydney. She received a BSc (Hons) from there in 1993.
In 1998 Bremmell completed a PhD from the University of Newcastle in chemical engineering. Her doctoral studies investigated the fundamental nature of chemicals used in treating industrial wastewater. Concurrent with her studies, during 1994-1997 she was a wastewater treatment consultant at Jetflote, where she was involved in the development of chemical treatments for industrial waste.
From 1998-2001 when she was a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, in the Particulate Fluid Processing Centre, she investigated particle and fluid interactions on a project in the alumina industry.
Appointed in 2001 as a research fellow at the Ian Wark Research Institute at the University of South Australia, Bremmell is involved in a number of projects. Her research area is in colloid and interface science, where she investigates particle interactions and the effect of different molecules in suspensions. This work is important to the minerals industry in the processing of ores and the treatment of tailings. A second area of application of her research is in the biological and pharmaceutical area. She is involved in one project that measures the deformability of red blood cells using an atomic force microscope, and another that is looking at titanium bone implants.
Bremmell is a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. She is also a member of the Australian Science Communicators.
Projects in mineral processing
What did you do after your PhD?
I got a research position at the University of Melbourne, working on an industrial project in the alumina industry. Like a lot of other mineral processing-type industries, they put their waste products into a tailings dam – eventually the water will evaporate off and they can reclaim the land. We were looking at how you could better separate the solids from the liquids, using various mechanical techniques, and also at the various chemicals that are added to do this. If we could end up with a drier product, the land could be reclaimed a lot faster.
And in your current work, at the Ian Wark Research Institute, in Adelaide, two of your projects relate to mineral processing, don’t they?
Yes. One project is on optimising dewatering in mineral processing. That is a little bit similar to the work I did in Melbourne Uni but it involves looking at the whole process, right from the ore extraction through to the tailings dams, and again the different chemicals and mechanical techniques that you can add to optimise the mineral processing.
Another project is looking at polymers in mineral processing. A polymer has a long-chain carbon backbone. We are studying how these molecules adsorb onto particles and flocculate them, or how they might form a steric barrier to allow the particles to slide over each other in a more efficient way for pumping. We do a lot of fundamental work, from looking on a small scale at how the chemicals interact with a surface, right up to looking on a larger scale at the rheology, or flow, of these systems with chemicals present. So we go from the nanometer scale right up to the plant scale, where we do a lot of plant visits and testing of the actual product.
Biological applications
Isn’t there also an interesting biological aspect of your work?
There is. Since I started at the Ian Wark Institute I have been interested in coming into the biological area, and one of the projects I’m involved in is looking at how red blood cells deform to fit through your small capillaries. We plan to use an atomic force microscope, which comes into contact with the red blood cells and measures the force as a sphere approaches a red blood cell, to measure how that red blood cell deforms and also its elasticity. We hope to then be able to apply that to red blood cells from people with different diseases – to look at how these diseases (and different pharmaceuticals) might affect the red blood cells. Then we can apply this to other types of cells as well.
The other project I’m involved in, with a PhD student, is looking at titanium bone implants. When you implant something into your body, you want it to be accepted by your body and then you also want it to adhere quite quickly and become part of your bone structure. We’re looking at the different proteins, which are what adsorbs first onto your bones: how they adsorb, and how quickly and how strongly they adsorb. Once the proteins have adsorbed, then the bone cells are able to come and grow on your implants.
An edited transcript of the full interview can be found at http://www.science.org.au/node/327223.
Focus questions
Select activities that are most appropriate for your lesson plan or add your own. You can also encourage students to identify key issues in the preceding extract and devise their own questions or topics for discussion.
adsorb
bone implant
colloid
deformability
dewatering
mineral processing
tailings
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