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TOR receives assistance to check
harmful emissions
Cape Coast, Nov. 19, Ghanadot/GNA- The Tema Oil Refinery
(TOR) has installed a Differential Optical Absorption
Spectometer (DOAS) system worth about $30,000 to enable it
assess the impact of industrial emissions into the
atmosphere.
The DOAS system, which is the first of its kind in the
country, is capable of checking emissions from industries in
Tema up to a distance of 10 kilometres, and was donated by
the International Science for Atmospheric Climate (ISAC),
based in Italy.
Dr. Kofi Kodua Sarpong, Chief Executive of the company, made
this known at the ‘International Conference on Optics and
Lasers in medicine and Environmental Monitoring for
Sustainable Development (OPTOLASERMED 2007), which opened at
the University of Cape Coast (UCC) on Monday.
The 10-day conference, the first to be held in Africa, is
aimed at sharing knowledge about how optical biomedical
technologies and biophotonics can help in enhancing medical
and environmental sciences.
About 70 optical scientists, physicians, engineers,
technologists and professionals operating in the fields of
optical spectroscopy, modern optics, lasers, medicine,
environmental monitoring and biophotonics as well as
graduate students, from Africa, Asia, America, Europe and
Australia.
It is being organized by the Laser and Fibre Optics Center (LAFOC)
of the UCC, in collaboration with among others, the
International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP),
International Commission for Optics (ICO), and TOR.
The objectives of the conference include, providing a
platform for training upcoming medical practitioners and
scientists for the dissemination of medical, practical and
scientific knowledge in laser technology and optics.
Dr. Sarpong stressed the determination of the company to
make the safety of the refinery and of the people within and
around its environs its paramount interest, and therefore
expressed delight that the company’s collaboration with the
academia had given it “an extra mile” into the sustainable
management of industrial activities in Tema.
He said already, two engineers of the company have been
invited to Italy to study the use and operation of the
system.
The TOR boss pledged that TOR and the Oil Marketing
Companies will continue to support such collaboration which
is imperative to improve their operations.
He noted that considering the operations of such industries
and their effect on the populace, it was laudable to monitor
pollutants and their consequent effect using optics and
laser technologies.
He, in this regard, expressed the hope that the conference
will assist industrialists, engineers and medical
practitioners in their deliberations to “speak against
possible actions and inactions that may affect the health
status of our people.
In a key-note address read for him, the Minister of
Education, Science and Sports, Professor Dominic Fobih, also
underscored the importance of the use of optics and lasers
for socio-economic advancement.
He announced that with the new dimension of laser
applications, his Ministry will consider expanding
facilities at LAFOC to enhance research work to support the
UCC’s School of Medical Sciences, which takes off next year.
The Minister said, in this way, the immediate use of laser
technology in medicine and environmental monitoring will be
at our doorstep in fostering and supplementing good health
care delivery.
He said, already, in recognition of the importance of this
technology, his ministry has introduced the subject of
lasers in the new educational reform programme in the high
school curriculum, and was happy that some students in Cape
Coast have had the privilege of visiting LAFOC to be abreast
of the technology.
He said the consideration of the application of laser
technologies to the students, who are the future engineers
and medical practitioners, at the conference, would be a
long term investment into their formation period.
Prof. Fobih, in this regard, commended Prof Maria Calvo
Padilla of the University of Madrid, and Secretary to the
ICO, for planning to demonstrate the application of lasers
to girls from high schools in the Cape Coast municipality.
He expressed the hope that the conference will discuss the
need to integrate optics and photonics in the new direction
of laser applications in medicine and environmental
monitoring.
Prof. Fobih described the conference as the beginning of
technology transfer that links up academic institutions to
industry in research endeavours and therefore urged
industries and academic institutions to foster research
teams to help solve challenging problems encountered by
industries and hospitals.
In his welcoming address, the Vice-Chancellor of the UCC,
Rev. Prof Emmanuel Adow Obeng stressed that environmental
pollution had become a major concern, while there was no
proper monitoring mechanism to stem it.
He pointed out that health and environment cannot be
separated and that a sound environment improved the health
of the people, which in turn increased productivity.
He said the establishment of LAFOC had enabled the
university to enhance its research work and expressed
gratitude to the ICTP for its immense assistance to LAFOC.
Dr Mohammed Shabbat, of the Max Planck Institute for the
Physics of Complex System, in Dresden Germany, and one of
the participants to the conference, was presented with a
medal, a diploma and an unspecified cash donation for
winning the ‘ICO Galileo Galilee Award’ for his work in
Theoretical and electro-magnetic Optics, “accomplished under
comparative unfavourable circumstances”.
Dr. Shabbat, a Palestinian, is the first scientist from the
Arab world to win the award which was instituted in 1993.
Among topical issues being discussed at the conference, are
“Diagnostics and treatment of malignant tumors using laser
techniques”, “new possibilities with X-rays in the fields of
medicine and paleontology” and “laser sources in medicine
and environmental monitoring”.
GNA
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