The ‘Chemical Technology' Awards 2012 took place on the 27th June at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club and was well attended.

The Undergraduate Student of the Year prize, sponsored by Vega Instruments SA, went to two students who worked as a pair on their final year project at UCT: Farai Mashayamombe and Siphesihle Radebe for their paper, supervised by Aubrey Mainza; Lawrence Bbosa and Ditend Tesh at the Department of Chemical Engineering Centre for Minerals Research. The paper is entitled ‘The role of media size on the energy consumption in an Isamill'. Photo 1 shows Farai (left) and Siphesihle with Natalie Barnes (second from right) who represented Vega Instruments, and Glynnis Koch, the magazine's editor.

In the Postgraduate Research Paper of the Year, sponsored by Vega Instruments SA, the judges decided to award the prize to the team consisting of researchers from three organizations working together to find a solution to a problem. The student, Crispian Lees, from the Pollution Research Group of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Chemical Engineering department, together with Pierrie van Zyl from the Environmental Science and Engineering R&D division at Sasol Technology, in Sasolburg, George Ekama of the Water Research Group, at the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Cape Town and Chris Brouckaert and Kitty Foxon, both of the Pollution Research Group, University of KwaZulu-Natal. The paper is entitled ‘Dynamic Modelling of Anaerobic Digestion of Fischer-Tropsch Reaction Water: Different Approaches to Physico-Chemical Modelling'. Photo 2 shows Crispian (left) and Pierrie (right) with Natalie (Vega) and Glynnis.

Lena Brown, a final year student at the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Pretoria last year, won in the Water Specialization category this year. The award was also sponsored by Vega Instruments SA, and the paper is entitled Effect of pH on Cr(VI) adsorption efficiency from waste water using a Pinus bark mixture. Photo 3 shows Lena receiving her certificate from Natalie (Vega).

Two certificates of recognition were awarded in the Water category. The first went to Stuart Woolley of the Pollution Research Group at UKZN. His paper on ‘Developing a Flow-Through Device to Determine Oxygen Utilization Rate' received a certificate for Potential for Commercialization for a good idea for a useful application. Stuart could not be at the awards unfortunately.

The second certificate of recognition, this time for Water Research on an interesting aspect of water disinfection, went to DTech student Nomcebo Mthombeni, together with Lizzy Mpenyana-Monyatsi, Maurice Onyango, and Maggie Momba, all of the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering at the Tshwane University of Technology. The paper is entitled ‘Investigation and Breakthrough Analysis of Fixed Bed Columns Using Silver Nanoparticles Coated Resin for Water Disinfection'. Photo 4 shows Nomcebo with Natalie and Glynnis.

The judges did not award a prize in the Energy category of the Awards but did award a certificate of recognition, for ‘Waste-to-Energy Innovation' for the outstanding work carried out by COMPS (the Centre of Material and Process Synthesis) at Wits University. The paper outlined the research and commercialization prospects of the BeauTi-fueL Project, sub-titled ‘An innovative Waste-to-Energy initiative'. Mark Peters co-author of the paper, received the certificate together with Prof Diane Hildebrandt, on behalf of the COMPS team. Photo 5 shows Prof Diane Hildebrandt and Mark Peters from COMPS, with Natalie Barnes of Vega Instruments SA.