Selo Ndlovu

Sehliselo (Selo) Ndlovu is a professor in the School of Mining Engineering and Mineral Resources at the University of Arizona. She holds a BSc in metallurgical engineering from the University of Zimbabwe and a PhD in minerals engineering from Imperial College, London UK. She brings over 20 years of experience in extractive metallurgy and hydrometallurgy, with a focus on sustainable recovery of critical and precious metals from diverse sources.

Ndlovu is internationally recognized for her research in mineral characterization, leaching and bioleaching, solvent extraction, the processing of low grade and refractory ores and the treatment and valorization of mine tailings, metallurgical waste and acid mine drainage. Her work integrates fundamental mineral–solution and mineral–microbe interactions with applied process and flowsheet development to enable, scalable metal recovery technologies, particularly for rare earth elements, copper, cobalt, platinum group elements and gold.

Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Ndlovu held several senior academic and research leadership roles, including serving as a South African Research Chair (SARCHI) in Hydrometallurgy and Sustainable Development in South Africa. She has led large multidisciplinary, multinational  research programs, supervised more than 50 graduate students to graduation and collaborated extensively with industry partners to translate research into deployable technologies. Her career reflects a strong commitment to advancing sustainable mining practices, capacity building and the development of resilient critical mineral supply chains.

Degrees

• PGDip Higher Education
  • University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
• PhD Engineering
  • Imperial College, London, London, United Kingdom
  • Dissertation: "Bacterial Leaching of Pyrite Single Crystals"
• BSc Engineering
  • University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe

Courses

View the complete course list in UA Profiles.

Scholarly Contributions

Chapters

• Ndlovu, S. (2025). Environmental Considerations. In Treatise in Process Metallurgy. Elsevier, doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-443-40294-4.00046-3.

Journals/Publications

• Baleti, C. W., Shemi, A., & Ndlovu, S. (2025). Cloud Point Extraction of Platinum Group Metal solutions: Key factors in metal extraction and selective elution at low concentrations. Microchemical Journal, 216(Issue), doi.org/10.1016/j.microc.2025.114683.
• Kumar, A., Shemi, A., Chipise, L., Yah, C. S., Moodley, S., & Ndlovu, S. (2025). Optimizing Biogenic Cyanide Production Using Indigenous Cyanogenic Microorganisms for Bioleaching of Precious Metals. Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy, doi.org/10.1007/s40831-025-01110-6.
• Notole, V., Nwaila, G. T., Safari, M., & Ndlovu, S. (2025). Investigating mineral composition of PGE low-grade ore in Bushveld igneous complex, South Africa. Minerals Engineering, 234(Issue), doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2025.109682.
• Shemi, A., Ndlovu, S., & Sacks, N. (2025). An optimized recovery of cobalt and tungsten carbide (WC) from a binary-phase WC-6 wt%Co cemented tungsten carbide hardmetal using design of experiments. Minerals Engineering, 233(Issue), doi.org/10.1016/j.mineng.2025.109597.
• Vilakazi, A. Q., Shemi, A., & Ndlovu, S. (2025). Dry Magnetic Separation and the Leaching Behaviour of Aluminium, Iron, Titanium, and Selected Rare Earth Elements (REEs) from Coal Fly Ash. Minerals, 15(Issue 2), doi.org/10.3390/min15020119.