Efthymios Balomenos received his degree in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1995 and completed his PhD study in Thermodynamics from the same institute in 2006. He is currently a Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Metallurgy. He is passionate in innovative metallurgical processing, focusing on resource preservation and climate change mitigation. He has authored and co-authored 43 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books and more than 45 publications and presentations at scientific conferences. His research interests include industrial residue (bauxite residue, metallurgical slags, spent catalyst, e-waste) valorization, critical metal extraction and recovery, alternative paths to metallic iron and aluminum production, innovation in alumina production, electric arc furnace processing, microwave processing, thermodynamic modeling, exergy accounting, circular economy, and others.
Dimitrios Panias completed his PhD study on gold pyrometallurgy at the School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1984. He is currently a metallurgical engineer and a Professor in Extractive Metallurgy at NTUA teaching Chemistry, Non-Ferrous Metals, Extractive Metallurgy, Transport Phenomena, Computational Chemical Thermodynamics, and Electrometallurgical Processes. He is also the head of the TeSMet (Technologies for Sustainable Metallurgy) research group which has undertaken numerous EU-funded research projects. His main research focuses on extractive metallurgy, electrometallurgy, waste Valorization, wastewater treatment, geopolymerization (lightweight porous and fire-resistant inorganic polymers), and chemical processing of ores and metallurgical wastes with ionic liquids.
