Professor Alison Lewis

Director Crystallization and Precipitation Unit (CPU) Department of Chemical Engineering University of Cape Town Rondebosch Cape Town 7700 South Africa t : + 27 21 650 4091 f : + 27 21 650 5501 e : alison.lewis@uct.ac.za w : www.chemeng.uct.ac.za

Qualifications

BSc Chem Eng (UCT), MSc Chem Eng (UCT), PhD (UCT)

Background
Alison Lewis graduated with a BSc (Chem Eng), MSc (Chem Eng) and PhD, all from UCT, and is a registered Professional Engineer. She is the Director of the Crystallization and Precipitation Unit, one of the accredited research units at UCT. The Research Unit has national and international recognition as specialists in the field of Industrial Crystallization and Precipitation, especially in hydrometallurgical applications. Water and brine treatment have become an increasingly important focus of the Unit's activities.

The Research Unit is funded by a range of national and international mineral and chemical processing companies and consists of four staff members, a post-doc, and 15 postgraduate students. The outputs of the research unit include 18 postgraduate degrees, 71 international peer-reviewed publications, one patent, eight books and chapters in books, and 85 conference presentations.

Employment
2006-present Professor, Chemical Engineering Department, UCT
2001-2006 Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering Department, UCT
1995-2001 Senior Lecturer, Chemical Engineering Department, UCT
1995-1995 Doctoral Research Officer, Water Research Group, Civil Engineering Department (UCT)
1990-1993 PhD Civil Engineering (UCT)
1988-1989 Process Engineer, South African Nylon Spinners
1986-1987 MSc Chemical Engineering (UCT)

Selected Recent Publications

• Lewis, A.E., Khodabocus, F.,  Dhokun, V., and Khalife, M., 2009.  Thermodynamic Simulation and Evaluation of Sugar Refinery Evaporators using Aspen Plus (submitted)
• Lewis, A.E., Nathoo, J., Thomsen, K., Kramer, H.J., Witkamp, G.J., Reddy, S.T. and D. Randall, Design of a Eutectic Freeze Crystallization process for multicomponent waste water stream, Chemical Engineering Research and Design, (accepted with revisions).
• Hove, M., van Hille, R., and Lewis, A.E., 2009. The effect of different types of seeds on the oxidation and precipitation of iron, Hydrometallurgy, 97, 3, 180-184
• Ntuli, F. and Lewis, A. E., 2009. Kinetic modelling of nickel powder precipitation by high-pressure hydrogen reduction, Chemical Engineering Science, 64, 9, 2202-2215
• McGeorge, B., Gaylard, P. and Lewis, A.E., 2009. Mechanism of rhodium(III) co-precipitation with copper sulfide (at low Rh concentrations) incorporating a new cationic substitution reaction path, Hydrometallurgy, 96, 3, 235-245