Master of Technology Degree in Petrochemicals Technology

Petrochemicals are an integral component of modern industrial process and have become a basic component of day to day lives. Consequently, the sustainable production becomes critical on a local regional and global scale.

Zimbabwe is endowed with vast fossil fuel reserves, for example, coal and coal bed methane. It is noted that petrochemicals products from fossil fuels have to this day, maintained a position of significant importance within the manufacturing industry as many manufacturing processes use petrochemicals products as raw materials. Therefore, it is critical to extract and utilise fossil fuels for petrochemicals products at a national level as the bulk of petrochemicals products are imported. Consequently, the Master of Technology Degree in Petrochemicals Technology programme seeks to provide a skilled human capital with an in-depth understanding of petrochemicals raw material extraction and processing, petrochemicals manufacturing technologies, and petrochemicals design-related areas such as rapid processing and products development, and overall petrochemicals process optimisation.

The programme aims to produce petrochemicals engineers with skills to work in petrochemicals research and processing to service the Zimbabwean and international market.

Intended Learning Outcomes

• The ability and competence to utilise theoretical and fundamentals of petrochemicals raw material exploration, extraction and utilisation.
• Competence in research
• The ability to apply chemical and process engineering principles, for example, unit operation modelling and separation technology research, to optimise enhanced process control and solve problems and challenges in petrochemicals technology.
• Competent in the use of Petrochemicals software, for example, geoSCOUT for exploration geological data analysis, OSIsoft PI, for data integration and analytics to support plant and utilities with operational intelligence and analytics, Mathlab for equipment and process simulations and Design Expert for experimental design and result analysis.

Programme Structure