November 2010
I don't know if it's just an effect of the ageing process, but does the speed of life seem to be faster than before? Not long ago, we were looking forward to the World Cup and now it's nearly Christmas.
Our first article in this edition is about the petrochemical industry, specifically about safety planning, ie, it concerns an Instrumented Protective Function (IPF) Management Plan at the Engen Refinery. Written by Mervyn Gans, Principal IPF Engineer at Engen Petroleum in South Africa, this article is based on a presentation given at the Second Safety Control Systems Conference 2010 organized by IDC Technologies and held in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in July this year.
In the Control and instrumentation engineering feature, Lita Mpahlwa, Product Manager: Level at Endress+Hauser, Johannesburg, South Africa, writes about precise level measurement in gas/steam phase in liquids. With the introduction of the new Levelflex series of guided radar instruments, Endress+Hauser reached the 'next level' of instrumentation, thus increasing plant and process efficiency, he tells us.
‘Fluoropolymers - establishment of a local capability' is the title of the Materials of construction feature and is authored by Philip Crouse, Fluoromaterials and Process Intergration SARChI chairholder ath the University of Pretoria. The Fluorochemical Expansion Inititiative (FEI) is a key government strategy within the Departments of Minerals and Energy (DME), Trade and Industry (DTI), and Science and Technology (DST), aimed at the beneficiation of local fluorspar and local fluorochemical technology development.
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‘Industrial energy efficiency improvement project in South Africa'
by Gerswynn Mckuur, National Project Manager for the Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement Project for South Africa, (National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa, CSIR)
This article discusses the national project which has been developed in response to the growing need to improve the capacity of South African industry to use available energy resources more efficiently and productively now and in future years.
Rubber doesn't (just) grow on trees
By Christian Schulze Gronover and Dirk Prufer who are researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute and University of Muenster.
It may not have made the headlines yet, but the world faces a potential rubber shortage. Demand, especially from developing economies, is strong and expected to grow stronger as a rocketing oil price drives up the cost of synthetic alternatives. At the same time, the established source of the natural variety - the rubber tree - is threatened by disease. The world last faced a rubber crisis during World War II, and it looks increasingly like a wartime substitute may once again come to the rescue.
