March 2010
The March edition covers a number of pertinent topics. In the first, concentrated on waste management, you will read about three important matters regarding wastes of different types, as well as being able to browse through the shorter items which appear in the focus section and cover such things as glass recycling, seals for pumps and mixers that reduce leakage, an incinerator in KZN for a diagnostic veterinary lab, and much more.
In the other features you will find information on initial start-ups of process plants, a new topic about emerging technologies (a hot topic today - no pun intended) and separation and filtration technologies. Aside from lots of relevant news snippets and short articles in the Focuses, there is the general news in the Et Cetera column and our usual hard sudoku.
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Battling corrosion in refineries with the power on in-line analysis "Corrosion in refinery operations has been, and still is, the subject of many studies, papers, courses and web forums. Although a lot of what has been written shows that significant progress in understanding corrosion has been made, it also makes it clear that the problem continues to exist and that quite possibly it is getting worse."
Thus starts the article on corrosion in refineries and how to do battle with it using in-line analysis, which is the feature article in our Corrosion and coatings engineering feature. One of the many interesting points made in the article refers to an analysis report by NACE International which states that in the USA alone, annual profit losses due to refinery corrosion may be as high as 12 billion USD.
The article explains how many corrosion mechanisms are not yet fully understood and that he problem with petroleum refining, in particular, is that there is not one single source of corrosion, but many. How accurate is your instrument calibration? In our Control and instrumentation engineering feature, Emmanuel Manaka of MSA Africa, asks how accurate your instrument calibration is, and offers some solutions. But first he answers the question "What is instrument calibration?" He explains how regular calibration with a certified standard gas concentration updates the instrument's reference point, and enables it to continue to produce accurate readings. He goes on to discuss the two ways to verify instrument calibration, depending on the circumstances: a functional or ‘bump' test, or full calibration. Hazards XXI Our Safety, standards and risk analysis feature comes to us from Rod Prior, md of SHExcellence in Johannesburg. He reports on ‘Hazards XXI' held in Manchester, England in November 2009, the theme of which was process safety and environmental protection in a changing world. In his report Rod reviews the proceedings of this major chemical and process industry symposium and highlights trends and developments in Europe while drawing implications for the process industries in South Africa. Rod concludes: "Hazards XXI had much to offer for improving process safety worldwide and for South African companies in particular."
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