The Southern African Institute for Occupational Hygiene (SAIOH) recently awarded Dr Stefan Linde, senior lecturer in the Faculty of Health Sciences and member of the Occupational Hygiene and Health Research Initiative (OHHRI), as well as one of his master’s students, Robyn Hyslop, for their research excellence in the field of occupational hygiene.

Dr Linde received the SAIOH award for the research article of the year (2017) for his article entitled “Occupational respiratory exposure to platinum group metals: a review and recommendations”. Prof Johan du Plessis and Prof Anja Franken, who, as the promoters of Dr Linde’s PhD, co-authored the article.

Ms Robyn Hyslop and Dr Stefan Linde.

Robyn, who completed her MSc in occupational hygiene at the NWU in 2017, received the SAIOH award for the tertiary student of the year (2017) for excellent academic achievement in lectured modules and her mini-dissertation entitled “Surface contamination from use of metal powders at two addictive manufacturing facilities”. This she completed under the supervision of Dr Linde, Prof Franken and Sonette du Preez.

Dr Linde’s article reviews historic data dating back to 1945, on respiratory exposure to platinum group metals (PGMs) and provides guidance to the PGMs industry regarding exposure monitoring programs and limitations of current health and safety legislation regarding exposure to PGMs. Members of the PGMs community described the article as a very useful and thorough review of the literature available on occupational respiratory exposure to PGMs.

The findings of Robyn’s study were communicated to the South African additive manufacturing community at the 19^th annual Rapid Product Development Association of South African (RAPDASA) that was recently held in Johannesburg.