Biography:Aaron Marshall

Aaron Marshall ONZM
Alma mater	Victoria University of Wellington
Scientific career
Fields	Electrochemistry
Thesis	Investigation of cryolite ratio measurement by potentiometric methods (2002)

Aaron Marshall is a New Zealand electrochemist researching improvements to industrial electrochemistry, and a professor of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Canterbury.

Academic career

After graduating with a Bachelor of Technology (Hons) at Massey University in 2001, Marshall completed a 2002 Masters thesis titled Investigation of cryolite ratio measurement by potentiometric methods at Massey. He then undertook a PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, finishing in 2005. Marshall joined the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Canterbury in 2009, was appointed full professor in December 2021, and in 2024 was Associate Head of the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering. He is a Principal Investigator at the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, and an Associate Investigator in the University of Canterbury's Biomolecular Interaction Centre.

Research

Marshall's electrochemical research concerns managing chemical reactions on the surface of electrodes in energy and hydrogen technologies, looking at ways to minimise the operating costs and emissions of electrochemistry at an industrial scale. He began his research career in fundamental science, and then began applying it to commercial opportunities, cofounding two spin-out companies that have commercialised his research: Zincovery and Ternary Kinetics.

Zincovery, founded in 2019 by Marshall and his Master's student Jonathan Ring, produces high-quality pure zinc recycled from steel industry waste. While visiting a galvanised steel factory in 2018, marshall was told a huge amount of zinc in scrap steel was being sent to landfill. During the recycling of scrap galvanised steel, the steel is melted in a furnace but the zinc and other materials are vaporised into furnace dust; an average steel mill will produce tens of thousands of tonnes of furnace dust a year. Marshall developed a novel process for extracting the zinc bound in very stable oxides in this dust. His process reduces emissions by 95% and operating costs by 45% compared with conventional zinc recovery using a Waelz Kiln, which produces twice the greenhouse gas emissions of simply mining the metal. Zincovery won the 2020 C-Prize from Callaghan Innovation, and raised $3 million from investors in 2022. The company plans to set up a processing plant to sell pure recovered zinc. Marshall has stated "In 20 years, I hope zinc is no longer mined at all – it will be recovered and reused."

Marshall and his colleague Sally Brooker have been active in promoting the production of green hydrogen in New Zealand. Ternary Kinetics, started in 2023, has developed a renewable energy system that stores hydrogen for electricity generation in a liquid carrier. The liquid can be transported and stored using existing diesel fuel infrastructure, and its hydrogen can be discharged and recharged after use. Marshall's work was to develop an efficient electrocatalytic pathway to retrieve energy from the liquid. This technology allows energy to be generated renewably in one area and transported to power heavy machinery in another.

Selected works

•  , Wikidata Q138419083
•  , Wikidata Q107604087
•  , Wikidata Q107604103
•  , Wikidata Q107604111
•  , Wikidata Q107604108

Honours and awards

Marshall receiving the 2025 Pickering Medal

Marshall was awarded the 2025 Pickering Medal from the Royal Society Te Apārangi for his electrochemistry research and his work on commercialisation of technologies to improve the sustainability and efficiency of industrial electrochemistry.

External links

• Aaron Marshall publications indexed by Google Scholar