Professor Alan R Butcher has been appointed Chief Scientist & Technical Director of Origin Analytical, and will lead the ambitious growth path for the Hafren Scientific Group into the geomaterials, mining, and environmental business sectors, including the Green Energy Transition, the Circular Economy, and Zero Waste industry.

He will be the scientific and technical lead for commercial & academic collaborations; as well as develop new consultancy capabilities. Additionally, he will be coordinating all R&D requirements across the Origin Analytical & X-ray Minerals Services businesses.

Alan has been a geologist for nearly 45 years, having worked in South Africa, UK, Australia, The Netherlands, and Finland. He is both a generalist and a specialist, which has allowed him to follow exciting new trends in Earth Science throughout his career.

Alan is best known for his innovation in the field of mapping, imaging and analysis of rocks, especially those of commercial, strategic or scientific importance. He uses a multi-scale (planets to protons), multi-modal (visible light, x-ray, e-beam, & laser beam sources), and multi-dimensional (2D to 4D) workflow approach. This allows for the bridging of the different scales of observation found in nature, and for the mineralogy, texture and geochemistry of any geomaterial to be fully characterised.

He is particularly experienced in the Geometallurgy of Critical Minerals, specifically battery minerals, the Circular Economy, and many aspects to do with the Green Energy Transition, which he gained whilst recently a Professor of Geomaterials & Applied Mineralogy at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK).

Alan is also a Visiting Professor of Geoinspired Utilisation of Planetary Materials at The Open University (UK), where he is researching the possibilities of bringing Space technologies down to Earth, for Zero Waste applications.

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