Record attendance at SCENZ-IChemE New Zealand annual conference

A record number of delegates attended the annual SCENZ-IChemE New Zealand conference last month with speakers from chemical engineering industry, academia and research sharing ideas.

SCENZ-IChemE in New Zealand chair, David Platts said that the conference had a good blend of industrial and academic papers and according to delegate feedback, the quick fire format of eight and two minute time slots for the academic presentations proved very successful.

“The event was preceded on the evening before by an engineering pub style quiz that proved quite a challenge for the non academics amongst us, and we did note that even the participating professors did encounter the odd problem or two,” Platts said.
“We were extremely fortunate to have Dr Kevin Marshall present at the 2011 Kennedy Wunsch Lecture, which was very informative and gave a fascinating insight into the innovation that New Zealand chemical engineers have been responsible for in the dairy and food sector.”

Platts thanked the industrial speakers and research presenters from all four universities for their input in helping to make the event a success and conveyed his gratitude to Waikato University and the local Waikato Bay of Plenty Branch for their sterling efforts in providing a stimulating conference.

It was an event that also gave an opportunity for the board and past chair, Dr Max Kennedy, to present Fellow lapel badges to four members, Colin Feltoe, Paul Feltoe Julian Glyn and Chris Bloore.

“We wonder if it is a first for a father and son combination to achieve such a status within the Institution!”

Next year’s big event will be Chemeca2012, hosted by SCENZ-IChemE in New Zealand and is set to take place on 23-26 September at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Chemeca 2012 registrations will open in early to mid February, prior to the abstract submission deadline.

Conference proceedings

Research abstracts:

• Structure of initial milk fouling deposits on doped diamond–like carbon (DLC) modified surfaces
• Wet oxidation of municipal biosolids: Scion’s Terax process compared to European practices
• Application of Electrical Resistance Tomography (ERT) to flow and velocity profile measurement of milk in a horizontal pipe
• Dynamic exergy plots using exergy factor
• Hydrogels, diffusion and swelling
• Total site targeting with process specific Δtmin
• Superhydrophobic surfaces on titanium
• Settling of bentonite in gelatine solutions
• Tube shape selection for heat recovery from particle-laden exhaust gas streams
• Development of a high protein frozen dessert
• Investigation of fuzzy logic control strategies for Building Integrated Photovoltaic Thermal (BIPVT) system performance
• Biofibre production from chicken feather
• Development of blood meal protein thermoplastic
• Characterisation of headspace dynamics in the standard petri dish minimum inhibitory concentration (mics) method
• Model to estimate relative permeability of dispersion coatings for papers
• The effect of surface temperature on the kinetics of browning in a model food system
• Flow indices for fine food powders
• Modelling diffusion and reaction of oxygen and lipid hydroperoxides in oil and oil in water emulsions in permeable polymer packaging

Industry papers

• Assessing hazardous areas
• Geothermal paper
• Land and water forum