Engineering Students With Billion-Dollar Ideas

A bunch of chemical engineering students gathered in the Wu Conference Center at University of New Brunswick Fredericton, Canada to show case their projects in the Innovations and Opportunities Atlantic Canada Engineering Conference. the project carried out by those students were very interesting. One of the projects which was converting coal to fuel was pretty interesting. I know the basics of this technology while doing my masters few years ago (I did converting gas to liquid technology before). The coal to fuel was first develop by SASOL in South Africa. For them, they managed to create a process which is commercially viable. Now, the students have presented their ideas to establish the coal to liquid plant in Canada and it will be truly rewarding if their ideas will be executed. Continue reading the full news below:

FREDERICTON - From producing synthetic oil from oil shale to making diesel from coal, energy production projects dominated the Innovations and Opportunities Atlantic Canada engineering conference.

More than 130 university and high school students, faculty, government officials and industry representatives packed the Wu Conference Centre at the University of New Brunswick Fredericton recently to hear about nine capital projects designed to bring major investments and jobs to the province.

Altogether the student projects, if they were all built, would represent more than $6 billion in capital investments and would create more than 1,700 jobs.

Among the most intriguing ideas presented at the one-day event was a plant designed to turn coal from Minto into ultra-low sulphur diesel.

"Our economic analysis shows this plant is extremely profitable," said Blair Kelly, one of the three students who designed the $1.1-billion facility.

The plant, designed by Kelly, Stephanie Guay and Rebecca Appleton would produce 10,000 barrels of diesel fuel each day from 1,400 tonnes of coal. If built, it would be the first coal-to-liquid fuels plant in Canada.

The technology was first developed during the Second World War and is in use in South Africa as well as China.

Continue reading the full article HERE.

Photos: Rebecca Appleton, Blair Kelly and Stephane Guay, chemical engineering students at the University of New Brunswick, have designed a $1.1-billion coal-to-liquid fuels plant which could be built in Minto. The plant would produce 10,000 barrels per day of ultra-low sulphur diesel.

Power Surge From Local Power Supplier

There are simply a lot of problems in a processing or a production plant. I did mentioned a broad or general ideas on the problems before this.

It will be very frustrating if a problem arises from an uncontrollable source. For example, today, there was a power surge which came from the local power supply. It happened so fast and we felt the power interruption in a split second. Immediately, I looked through the CCTV and checkout what was happening from inside my office. The plant operators were running here and there checking the valves, pumps and other equipments. Three units of boilers which are supposed to supply steam to the plants shut off. The boiler man worked very hard to start up the boiler step by step. My colleague, a charge man, swiftly checked the LV (Low Voltage) room to checked on any problem or tripping on our site. Fortunately, everything was in perfect order. It was the 1 second power surge that affected us and definitely resulted in a terrible downtime to our production.

How to avoid such downtime?

For our side, we cannot avoid this. It must be control from the local power supplier, in our case, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). They must ensure their local power station is performing well and delivering sufficient power to surrounding factories and plants. Well, that's one kind of downtime that is very costly and unavoidable. A problem that is beyond our control.

Manchester - Successful Contractor Management 2008

Today I received an email from EngineerLive.com that I think should be shared with you guys who do not received those informations. It is about an event related to successful contractor management. Those who are in the Engineering, Procurement and Construction field or industry should take note on this. Following is the exact email I got from them:

Dear Engineer

Join us at this year’s “Successful Contractor Management 2008” conference on the 20th and 21st May 2008 in Manchester. Effective contractor management is an essential issue today within maintenance management and technical projects. Ensuring your contractors meet Health & Safety standards is critical; getting the most out of your contractual relationships can be challenging; guaranteeing trained, competent and professional contractors problematic; and, measuring contractor performance is both complex and time consuming. And that’s just scratching the surface. If you also consider key topics like risk management, training, partnership models, planning and scheduling, contractual monitoring and IT it’s hardly surprising that the issue of contractor management is becoming increasingly important.

This conference will cover these topics, and more, and will give you all the tools and techniques you need to overcome these challenges. With best practice case studies from Halliburton, London Underground, Merck, OMV, Ontario Power Generation and Rolls-Royce this is a once in a lifetime chance to learn from those at the “coal face” of contractor management. You will also hear from the contractors themselves, getting their essential view on issues like relationship building, health and safety and performance measurement.

To download the conference brochure, and for more information please go to www.tacook.co.uk/cm2008

Packed with networking opportunities where you can thrash out your own challenges with the experts, this event offers you the most comprehensive platform to discuss these crucial issues.

You can also benefit form attending a pre-conference workshop. Gain a more comprehensive view of the individual issues being addressed, in a relaxed and informative environment. The workshops available at this event are:
Workshop A: Leading and Motivating Contracted Crews
Workshop B: Creating Value: Contract Management – A Wider View

For more information or to register please visit www.tacook.co.uk/cm2008 or contact the events team at info@tacook.com or +44 (0) 121 616 0190.

We look forward to meeting you in Manchester.

Kind regards,

Patricia Clemas
Events & Marketing Manager
T. A. Cook Conferences

Fabrication of Pressure Vessels

These are two very interesting videos that I would like to share. It's about pressure vessels that are normally available in any production plant from various industries. For me, I have numerous pressure vessels installed in the plant I take care. I never really pay attention on those vessels which include oil heater, boiler, distillation column, shell and tube etc. I only care about those vessels during the annual plant inspection shutdown and maintenance. That time, we have to open the manhole(s) of the vessels and clean the internal part of it. However, I have never thought or imagine how those pressure vessel are fabricated! The following videos reveals hot those equipments are made. Check out the videos - Part 1 and part 2.




The following texts are the description of the videos above that came along with the video in youtube.com:

A pressure vessel is a closed, rigid container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure different from the ambient pressure. The end caps fitted to the cylindrical body are called heads.

In addition to industrial compressed air receivers and domestic hot water storage tanks, other examples of pressure vessels are: diving cylinder, recompression chamber, distillation towers, autoclaves and many other vessels in mining or oil refineries and petrochemical plants, nuclear reactor vessel, habitat of a space ship, habitat of a submarine, pneumatic reservoir, hydraulic reservoir under pressure, rail vehicle airbrake reservoir, road vehicle airbrake reservoir and storage vessels for liquified gases such as ammonia, chlorine, propane, butane and LPG.

In the industrial sector, pressure vessels are designed to operate safely at a specific pressure and temperature, technically referred to as the "Design Pressure" and "Design Temperature". A vessel that is inadequately designed to handle a high pressure constitutes a very significant safety hazard. Because of that, the design and certification of pressure vessels is governed by design codes such as the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code in North America, the Pressure Equipment Directive of the EU (PED), Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS), CSA B51 in Canada, AS1210 in Australia and other international standards like Lloyd's, Germanischer Lloyd, Det Norske Veritas, Stoomwezen etc.

Room Temperature Superconducting Material

A friend of mine, Mael, gave this link to me. It's a very interesting article about a new breakthrough regarding superconducting material fabricated by a Canadian-German team which has been made out of a silicon-hydrogen compound and does not require cooling. The implications of the discovery are enormous and could transform the way people live by cutting power usage from everything from refrigeration to cell phones.

Instead of super-cooling the material, as is necessary for conventional superconductors, the new material is instead super-compressed. The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature.

Continue reading the full article here.

Impressive Resume Formats to Get You A Job

For final year chemical engineering students, any final year students or any engineers who want to create a resume, check out 36 Beautiful Resume Ideas that work. Resume is very important when getting a job and it provides the first impression to your potential employee (future boss). Hence, it will be useful to check it out and try to use one of them

National Chemical Engineers Symposium (NACES) 2008 in University Putra Malaysia

The next National Chemical Engineers Symposium (NACES) 2008, will be held in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) from 1st to 3rd of August 2008.

What is NACES?

National Chemical Engineers Symposium (NACES) is an annual gathering for all chemical engineering undergraduates from both public and private universities from all over Malaysia. This program can enhance the integration among chemical engineering undergraduates from different races. Apart from that, this program can provide exposure on the issues and challenges faced by chemical engineers in the era of globalization in their effort to develop the country.

In year 2005, NACES was held by Universiti Malaya (UM) in collaboration with Institute of Chemical Engineers Malaysia (IJKM). In year 2006, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) became the host for this program. Last year, NACES 2007 was held successfully in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).

Objectives

There are all together 4 very good objectives for NACES 2008. The objectives are as follows:

1. To enhance co-operation, networking and good relationship between the stakes holders, industry, academic and governmental organization in developing world class education program.

2. To draw interest and concern of the undergraduates over the importance of chemical and petroleum-based industries, and highlight chemical and petroleum engineers as potential driving force to the country’s development.

3. To create a venue for all universities in Malaysia to gather their thoughts and ideas for enhancement of our future as chemical engineers.

4. To provide an opportunity for participants and committee members from various social backgrounds to interact with each other and build new friendships.


Theme

The key to restoring climate stability is shifting from a fossil-fuel- based energy economy to one based on renewable sources of energy and hydrogen. The good news is that this shift is well underway. The bad news is that it may not be happening fast enough to avoid a climate- disrupting buildup of pollution.

The burning of coal, the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, peaked in 1996 and has dropped by 6% since then. This historical peak marked the first decline in the use of a fossil fuel. It may be followed by a similar peak in oil use within the next five to 15 years. In contrast, renewables, starting from a small base, are growing at an extraordinary pace. Worldwide, wind electric generation grew by 32% a year from 1995 to 2001. In 2001, it grew by a robust 36%. And in the United States, wind electric generating capacity jumped by a phenomenal 66% in 2001.

Continue reading about the theme here.

I seriusly urge junior chemical engineer to attend this symposium for to gain more exposure on the industry. Personally, I've attended the previous NACES 2007 hosted by the Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering (FKKSA), UTM as a judge for the forum/debate and a workshop moderator. I can observed students actively participating and discussing throughout the session. It was a great event. I'm sure that students attending any NACES program will gain valuable precious input from the event. However, I think it is good if they can include some sort of process or production plant tour in their agenda. It will be really good if the students can see the actual distillation column, heat exchanger, cooling tower, boiler, piping, pump, understand why NPSH is very important, and learn a lot more. Well, that purely depends on the organizing committee. I'm sure they've work so hard to plan and make the whole program perfectly realized. If only there are companies in our industry who can allow students to conduct a brief site visit, that would be very lovely.

Registration deadline is at 11th April while payment are expected to be completed before 18th April. Fees are RM70 and each university are only allowed to send maximum 30 representatives.

For further informations, please drop by their official website: http://eng.upm.edu.my/naces2008/

Download NACES 2008 brochures here.