Four top projects among Chem Eng theses

At the end of their undergraduate degrees, chemical engineering students present their research theses at a poster session and cocktail party. This popular event is supported by members of the department as well as industrial supporters and alumni, many of whom make a special effort to be in Cape Town for the evening.

"This year the standard of research and presentations was particularly high, generating much interest in the department's overall research activity," commented Dr Dee Bradshaw.

The project topics reflected a wide degree of diversity with the top four projects encompassing education, mineral processing, bio-processing and catalysis, respectively. However, it was the education project that emerged as the overall winner. "This is the first time a project on research into education has taken top honours, reflecting the priority of research and education in the department," Bradshaw added.

The groups were:

• Rosanna Martin and Bryan Maytham, with a project titled A Critical Examination of the Outcomes of the BSc Chemical Engineering Programme. This was supervised by Dr Jenni Case and Associate Professor Duncan Fraser.
• Sameer Morar with his project Evaluating Surfactant Adsorption Using an Automated System to Track Bubble Rise Velocity in a Column. This was supervised by Martin Harris.
• Jason Germanis and Guy Richards, with their project titled Production of an Antioxidant Formulation from Grape Waste. This was supervised by Associate Professor Stephanie Burton.
• Milly Mathonsi and Simangele Mngoma, with their project entitled Investigating the Reactivity and Selectivity of Thin Zeolite ZSM5 Films. This was supervised by Associate Professor Klaus Moller.