Going For Gold

This South African geologist has won an international science competition for figuring out how to use wheat to extract gold from soil

- Aphiwe Boyce

SHE’S a gold digger of the best kind – and her passion for the precious metal has helped her make science history.

Tshiamo Legoale, a South African geologist and researcher, hit the big time recently when she was crowned the FameLab International Champion at the Cheltenham Science Festival in the UK. She was the first South African to be awarded the honour.

The 27-year-old whizz was lauded for her groundbreaking research, which looks at “growing” gold from wheat.

Or, to put it in the geek speak of her profession, using wheat as a gold hyper accumulator – a plant that can absorb metals – to extract gold left behind after mining.

The young researcher, who hails from Mogwase in the North West, was one of four entrants from Africa and she blew the judges away with her smart plan.

We caught up with the energetic scientist at her Randburg office days after she returned to a hero’s welcome at the OR Tambo International Airport clutching the spoils of her win – a trophy and two fancy GoPro gadgets.

It was her three-minute presentation on phytomining, and how gold can be harvested from wheat crops grown on mine dumps, that had judges and contestants enthralled.

But what does that mean to lesser mortals, you might ask? Tshiamo says that South Africa has an estimated 17,7 million tons of gold waste. “All this gold was mined out in the past, but microscopic amounts remain in the dumps,” she says.

She works for a small-scale mining and beneficiation division at Mintek, a research and development organisation that specialises in mineral processing, extractive metallurgy – a branch of metallurgical engineering that studies the process of extracting metals – and related technology.

Tshiamo’s journey to global triumph started with an in-house competition at Mintek, in which she came second. At the time, she thought her dreams had been shattered.