Maurits Van Camp holds currently the position of Director of Research & Innovation at Umicore Precious Metals Recycling in Hoboken.

After obtaining a master degree in extractive metallurgy from the University of Utah he started in 1981  as a research engineer at Umicore’s Hoboken smelter.

Since 1995 Maurits worked  with Prof Eugene Jak and Prof Peter Hayes on setting up industrial backed consortia to build validated thermodynamic databases for the Pb-Cu, Ni-Cu and iron industries.  Maurits saw the integrated validated database as an essential tool in solving sustainability challenges for those industries. Hence the call to collaborate on “Our common future in extractive metallurgy”

Over the years he managed breakthrough developments for smelting complex non-ferrous metal:

• Introduction of the Isa smelt reactor for smelting a complex multi element feed (1997),
• Development of  the submerged plasma fumer  for Pb Zn residues (2004).
• Development of a process for recycling Li-ion rechargeable batteries  (2011).

In 2012 Maurits became Research Director of Umicore’s competence platform for Recycling & Extractive Technologies. 

In 2020 Maurits engaged as an adjunct Professor at the School of Chemical Engineering (University of Queensland) to continue further work with prof Eugene Jak and Prof Peter Hayes.