Silethukuthula Mathe

University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa

Jan 2019 - Apr 2021

MSc Chemical Engineering graduate, confer date 13/12/2021

• Heavily self-directed research-based degree discipline. Conducted lab-based experiments, and in the process collected and analyzed data. The research was based on the production of clean fuels using cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch catalyst, which was characterized using characterization techniques e.g XRD, TEM, H2-TPR, CO-TPD, TGA. The gaseous products were analyzed using GC-FID and GC-TCD. The project also involved a lot of technical report writing as well. From my research, I gained the ability to identify issues, obtain relevant information, relate, and compare data from different sources and identify alternative solutions.

University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa

Feb 2015 - Nov 2018

BSc Chemical Engineering (Hons) degree awarded in 2019

• Final year project: A feasibility study on NH3 production was done to compare and access design options for the construction of a new 300 000 tonnes/yr ammonia plant with provision for future expansion to 450 000 tonnes/yr. After accessing the best option, the plant was designed, optimized and cost estimates were made. MS Visio was used to draw the process flow and Aspen was used to optimize the system. This project was successfully done as team of 5.
• Final Year Research Thesis: Investigating the effect of reaction temperature of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis over Co/Al2O3 catalyst.