Chemical Technology December 2015

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Contents REGULAR FEATURES 3 Comment by Carl Schonborn, PrEng 31 IChemE SAIChE news 32 Sudoku No 110 and solution to No 109 / Et cetera COVER STORY 4 Are South African patents going to be stronger in the future? The South African Patent Office recently announced that it has plans to commence, in about two years’ time, substantive examination of patent applications. Examiners are currently being trained and selective examination of South African complete patent applications will commence in or before mid-2017. by Claudia Berndt, BEng, LLB, Patent Attorney, Hahn & Hahn, Pretoria, South Africa RENEWABLES 6 Electric cars will save the planet but destroy the grid Sometime in the next few months we’ll cross one of those made- up milestones: 1 million electric cars will be on roads around the world. by Gavin Chait PUMPS AND VALVE S 8 How an engineering firm buys a valve Engineering contractors need a lot of things from manufacturers, and they need to feel confident that they really get what they ask for. The specific data, knowledge and confidence in the manufacturer that are important at each stage are discussed in this article. by Ron Merrick, Fluor Daniel, USA and Susumu Mizuguchi, JGC, Japan

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WATER TREATMENT 16 Contaminants of emerging concern in drinking water in South Africa: Advances in many analytical techniques allow the detection of compounds in water at very low concentrations which has facilitated the identification of many compounds in drinking water that went previously undetected. by Christiaan Odendaal and Maitland T Seaman of the Centre for Environmental Management, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, and Gabre Kemp, Huibreght E Patterton, and Hugh-George Patterton of the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa23 Focus on control and automation 22 Chemical Technology’s focus on water problems and solutions in South Africa SEPARATION AND FILTRATION 24 Design guidelines for the chemical treatment of distillation columns – Part 2 Proper chemical treatment in distillation systems involves understanding distillation principles such as the chemistry of the process. Successful application must also include reviews of fouling, corrosion and economic and environmental constraints. by Karl Kolmetz, KLM Technology Group, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Transparency You Can See Average circulation (Q3 July – Sept 2015) 3 628

Chemical Technology is endorsed by The South African Institution of Chemical Engineers

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and the Southern African Association of Energy Efficiency

DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this journal are not neces- sarily those of the editor or the publisher. Generic images courtesy of www.shutterstock.com

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Chemical Technology • October 2015

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