Prof. Nickolas J. Themelis

Detailed description of working activity

Senior Associate, Earth Engineering Center, Columbia University (https://earth.engineering.columbia.edu); Stanley-Thompson Professor Emeritus, Earth and Environmental Engineering; President Global WtERT Council, Inc.

Current activity

Prof. Emeritus, School of Engineering,, Columbia University,
Member oft GWC Board of Directors
Nurturing activities on advancing sustainable waste management in 20 countries, including India and China.

Former activities

Dr. Themelis obtained his B. Eng. (British Association Medal for Great Distinction) and Ph.D. degrees from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) in chemical engineering. In the first ten years of his career, he was Director of the Engineering Division of the Noranda Research Center in Pointe Claire where he invented and helped develop the Noranda Process for the continuous smelting and converting of copper concentrates and recycled copper and the recovery of sulphur dioxide as sulphuric acid. At present there are several Noranda process plants operating. The largest plant, at Noranda, Quebec, co-processes annually a million tons of copper concentrates from all over the world plus 50,000 tons of electronic waste. In 1972-1980, Prof. Themelis was Vice President of Technology of Kennecott Corp., the major non-ferrous company at that time. He was appointed as Professor by Columbia University (New York City, U.S.A.) in 1980 and was elected to Stanley-Thompson Chair of Chemical Metallurgy in 1988. He was chairman of the Henry Krumb School of Mines and founded Columbia’s Earth Engineering Center in 1996 (www.columbia.edu/cu/earth). In 1995, he introduced at Columbia University the teaching of industrial ecology to engineers and in 1997 led the transformation of the historic School of Mines to the new engineering discipline of Earth and Environmental Engineering and was first chairman of the new Department. (www.eee.columbia.edu). Dr. Themelis has been consultant to industry and government in the areas of process design and management of technical resources. He is member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, member of the Metallurgical Society of Canada, Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, member of the Materials and Energy Division of ASME, and member of International Solid Wastes Association.
Prof. Themelis is founder and Chairman of the Global Waste to Energy Research and Technology Council (Global WtERT Council, www.GWCouncil.org; www.wtert.org), an international consortium of universities, companies and governmental organizations concerned with the recovery of materials and energy from industrial and municipal wastes by means of recycling, anaerobic digestion, composting, WTE, and landfill gas capture and utilization. GWC has sister organizations in U,S, (CCNY and Columbia). China, India, Germany, France, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, and other countries. The mission of GWC is the advancement of methods for material and energy recovery from urban, industrial, and agricultural wastes. Prof. Themelis is the recipient of several professional awards (listed below), author of over 200 technical papers and five books, and holder of several patents on metal extraction and refining.

Education

Graduate of McGill University in chemical and metallurgical engineering

Memberships

Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering,
Fellow of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society,
Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada .

Papers

• Striving for Sustainable Waste Management in a Rapidly Developing World
• Contributions of the Earth Engineering Center to understanding the impacts of waste management on climate change: 2008-2010
• Transport and Chemical Rate Phenomena
• The State of Garbage in America
• Thermal treatment review
• Methane generation in landfills
• Capture and Utilisation of Landfill Gas
• Waste in a land of plenty - Solid waste generation and Management in the US
• Where Greece stands on the Ladder of Sustainable Waste Management
• Sustainable Waste Management for the 21st Century
• Don't trash waste-to-energy plants
• Charter of the Global WtERT Council, September 2020
• Sustainable Waste Management, Waste-to-Energy, and the Role of the Universities
• Guidelines for devoloping WtERT web pages
• Guidebook For The Application of waste to energy technologies in latin america and the caribbean
• The State of Garbage in America
• Developments in Thermal Treatment Technologies
• Potential for the first WTE Facility in Mumbai, India
• Use of Statistical Entropy and Life Cycle Analysis to Evaluate Global Warming Potential of Waste Management Systems
• Potential for Reducing Global Methane Emissions From Landfills, 2000-2030
• Waste to energy (WTE) in China: from latecomer to front runner
• Methane Generation and Capture of U.S. Landfills
• Inventory of U.S. 2012 dioxin emissions to atmosphere
• Methane Generation and Capture of U.S. Landfills
• Energy and materials recovery from post‑recycling wastes: WTE