Molatelo Thebe, a master's student in metallurgical engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) at the University of Pretoria (UP), has been awarded the Ivan Ogilvie Scholarship by the Corrosion Institute of Southern Africa. 

The Institute is actively involved in promoting study and scientific research into corrosion and materials protection technology and encourage reporting, discussion and publication of corrosion experience and knowledge. To this end it also regularly collaborates with researchers and academics from different industrial sectors and higher education institutions in South Africa. As part of the Institute's active promotion of research into corrosion and corrosion control at South African universities and universities of technology, awards are made to outstanding postgraduate students who undertake research in the field of corrosion control. The award is made in two portions with 50% paid out to the student on receipt of the award and the remaining 50% after presentation of the research findings to the members of the Institute.

Thebe, who also completed his undergraduate studies at UP, has been working as a metallurgical engineer at Sasol Synfuels since June 2013, where he is actively involved with metallurgical and corrosion plant support, including failure investigations, materials characterisation, heat treatment, pressure tests, support inspection services and support to designated maintenance departments. His current duties also include the execution of metallurgical research and development projects aimed at alleviating long-term and/or repetitive failures, which provides a rich practical background that he can draw on to inform his research.

The research that he is currently undertaking for his master's studies under the supervision of Prof Roelf Sandenbergh, former dean of EBIT at UP, focuses specifically on CO2 corrosion in the oil and gas industry. An abstract of his work has been accepted by the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) in the USA, for whom he is currently writing a paper titled 'Mild steel corrosion behaviour in a CO2-H2O-CHOOH environment', which he will present at the 62nd NACE Corrosion Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, in April 2018.