Life Alert in a Plant and Industry

I still recall when I was a process engineer working in a refinery plant, there are some operator(s) working alone in a small plant and he sits in a small control room. Similar scenario for a boilerman who normally operates alone in the boiler house on his shifts. This is a normal situation in a small plant(s) and I sometimes imagine what happen if suddenly something happen to this fellows? If suddenly they are sick and/or get a heart attack, what will happen to the guy and the plant/boiler or other units he is operating? Who will know what is happening at that instant? The fact that nowadays, we can see healthy people suddenly collapse, higher percentage would be due to high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack which is occasionally due to bad eating habit and unhealthy lifestyle.

I have thought of a device, tool or alarm to alert somebody, possibly an senior technician, supervisor, engineer or manager whenever anything bad happens to their operator or boilerman. I surfed and searched the net and I found a website called Brickhouse Alert that provide a device that can alert the other party whenever anything (that they define) happen. A message or signal will be instantaneously be sent to the other party to inform on what has happen. The product can be installed at home and and has a Fall Detection detector that alerts 24/7 emergency personnel that something or a person have fallen. The person experiencing the emergency can even push a button and an emergency signal is sent.

On top of that, there is also a monitored smoke detector and a help button that if someone falls on the ground, they can smack it and will get help, medication reminders, inactivity detector and so much more. Smoke detector can off course detect fire before it become worse. Interestingly, as I browsed further in the web, I found out that the device is really cleaver. It can be programmed to detect "no movement" or "movement".

I guess that if this kind of product which is provided by BrickHouse Alert can be modified or suited for process plant or manufacturing industry application, it will be great. If I'm still a process engineer, I'll recommend such product to my company. Before I left my ex-company, an integrated computer system a.k.a a centralized control system was in progressed that can allow the engineers and managers to monitor all the production and utility data online. Those are made in concern of business but having a life alert will be display any company concern to their manpower. I also believe this product should be installed in offshore platforms / oil rigs where safety is extremely crucial for the staffs there.

I'm not sure of you but, though the product is mainly to cater for any situation in a house, I believe applying it in a more diverse industry and operation can be a huge success especially when valuing safety and profitability factor.

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GPS for Engineers?

There's undeniably a wide range of fields and discipline under chemical engineering. There are physical refining, research and development, plant processing, academician, safety and health, environmental and plenty others. All this expert area surely requires specific equipments, tools and gadget in order to run or operate the process.

One imperative equipment that chemical engineers working in the environmental fields and/or sales engineer require due to massive traveling is GPS which stands for Global Positioning System. GPS is space-based global navigation satellite system that provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to worldwide users on a continuous basis in all weather, day and night, anywhere on or near the Earth. It is with no doubt a very important equipment to locate or mark specific locations.

Personally, I also used a GPS to travel to certain unknown destination and also to marked important points of location. We (me and my wife) own 2 GPS presently, one is via her cell phone and the other one is a dedicated tough Garmin GPS for mountain hikers. For some, GPS might be an alien for you but you'll needed it very much, depending on your job scope. It will safe you a lot of hassle if you are traveling. To get a set of GPS, you can easily and efficiently browse at shopwiki. They provide massive range of GPS with various features and models. You can choose the GPS based on the types (hand held, car, cellphone, laptop, watch, nautical) or outdoor type (Garmin hand held personal navigator or Uniden 28 Mile GMRS Radio 2 Pack with Charging Cradle and Battery Packs) or special touch hand held GPS system.

In extreme conditions, when the basic seems simply inadequate, you can select for more advance GPS such as HP iPAQ rx5900 or Garmin Edge 350. Those two are example of very excellent, high end and advance GPS system. For example, GArmin Edge 350, not only can do what normal GPS can do but also amazingly can tracks heart rate, speed and other exercise features. This is a good choice for engineers to keep track of their health while working diligently.

In conclusion, I strongly think that GPS is a very excellent tool to ease our job but it also depends on our job nature. Those who do not frequently travel or have projects scattered in various location may not think this is a tool they need to own. It's up to you. For me, it has proven to be cost effective in the aspect of time saving and working efficiently.

How Do I Go About Becoming A Chemical Engineer?

I have just recently created a new website. It is called Chemical Engineering Question and Answer. I was actually inspired to create this website because I find it easier and fun learning through a series of question and answer format. It's more enjoyable.

For this post, I'm going to extract one set of question and answer about somebody asking how to become a chemical engineer. This is how it works... Somebody will ask a question and readers will try their best to answer the question as accurate as possible. This is basically adopted from Yahoo answer. I hope for those are considering to be a chemical engineer

Question: How Do I Go About Becoming A Chemical Engineer?

What do I have to do and what are the things I should be studying at the moment outside of highschool? I am still a junior.

Answers 1: Take all the science and math classes you can and even take dual classes at your local community college. Talk with your career adviser and look into what colleges offer this degree and what type of classes you’d be taking to get a grasp of what you can expect.

Answers 2: As the name of the profession suggests, be good in both mathematics and chemistry. If you intend to be a chemical engineer working in the food or biological industries, a solid background in biology will help too.

Answers 3: I have a dual degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. For any engineering you will need to be strong in mathematics and physics with an emphasis on the chemistry side for a chemical engineer. But mathematics is the most important by far, you’ll need to be good algebra and trigonometry to do well in calculus and good in calculus to get through differential equations.

Answers 4: Take all the high school maths and sciences. Generally try to enjoy high school and learn how to study. That will come in handy in university. If you can get do some extra calculus work in high school to make the transition to university math easier. You should be very interested in your high school chemistry classes if you plan to be a chemical engineer. Note that chemical engineering is usually focused on producing stuff, not inventing new products. Make sure you’re not actually interested in being a chemist or bio-engineering which are more focussed on designing new drugs or chemicals.

Answers 5: My daughter is a chemical engineer. You will need to study lots of Mathematics, especially Calculus. On top of that, you need to study physics and of course chemistry. Good luck, it’s a great major that can prepare you for anything….including medical school.

Answers 6: Chemical Engineering is the science of converting laboratory experiments into reality and application. It is a wonderful and interesting field. I know that I am talking about your choice to become a chemical engineer, and not really addressing your question of what to do prior. Before you decide to do that, I recommend you assure yourself that this is what you want, because it is not going to be a picnic my friend. It is really hard, but once you get a grip of it, things will automatically smoothen. I honestly recommend Petroleum Engineering as this science is blooming and they are considered as the highest paid engineers in the industry.
If you still want to be a chemical engineer, then I recommend you do lots of reading on chemistry, organic chemistry and read about how things are made and what are they made of.
Wish you the best.

My answer: As a high school student, focused and be good at Mathematics, physics, chemistry. Those are the fundamentals. At the same time, learn more about chemical engineering through associations such as IChemE, AIChemE, IEM etc. You'll get some direct knowledge on what chemical engineers do.
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Get "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook FREE

There's definitely no doubt that energy is a very crucial element in our lives. Early 2008, we have seen how high the petroleum price rises, more than $130 per barrel. Then towards the end of 2008 and early 2009, the petroleum price reduces to around $40-50 per barrel, which made everyone relieved. Now, we are witnessing an increase of petroleum price again. As up to this post was written, the price of crude petroleum is $67.79 per barrel. Personally, I don't want the price to increase again, and I believe none of you want that to happen as well. The current petroleum price increase has made the government in my country increase the price of petrol (gasoline) by 25 cents per liter (Malaysian currency).

Hence it is imperative for us to identify and choose alternative energy, and not depending solely on petroleum for our petrol (gasoline). In conjunction with that, I am giving away, FREE OF CHARGE, an e-book entitled "Choosing Alternative Fuel - How to save our environment and save your money". This book can easily be priced at $20 or $30 per copy, but I'm giving it away for you to read, learn, comprehend and if possible practice. It does not end there. On top of getting a free but extremely precious ebook, I'm going to give a free e-Course on Alternative Energy.

Here are the chapters covered in the e-book.

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 5
Chapter 1 - What Are Alternative Fuels …………………………………7
Chapter 2 - Gasoline and Oil ………………………………………………... 9
Chapter 3 - Why Are Gas Prices So High ………………………………16
Chapter 4 - Alternative Fuel Vehicles ……………………………………19
Chapter 5 - All About Alternative Fuels …………………………………25
Ethanol ……………………………………………………………………………… 25
Methanol ………………………………………………………………………… 28
Compressed Natural Gas ……………………………………………………29
Electricity …………………………………………………………………………32
Solar Power ……………………………………………………………………… 35
Hydrogen …………………………………………………………………………37
Liquefied Natural Gas ………………………………………………………40
Liquefied Petroleum Gas …………………………………………………. 41
Biodiesel ………………………………………………………………………… 43
Chapter 6 - Environmental Damage ……………………………………… 46
Chapter 7 - Global Warming …………………………………………………50
Chapter 8 - Alternative Fuel According to the Numbers …………54
Chapter 9 - What’s Uncle Sam Doing? ………………………………… 73
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………….79


What are you waiting for? Fill up your name and email in the form below and download your free "Choosing Alternative Fuel" Ebook 5 minutes from now.

First Name:
Email address:

p/s: You can also pass this e-book to your friends. I don't mind. Or if you want your friends to also receive the Alternative Fuel e-course, you can provide this link to your friends:

http://chem-eng.blogspot.com/2009/09/get-choosing-alternative-fuel-ebook.html

Gas Chromatography Calibration

I'm sorry. I know I'm suppose to share and write a post about having my article printed in the Yellow Pages Energy Guide. But, I think my recent experience during the GC calibration was very worth sharing.

Brief Introduction of our Gas Chromatography

Our research Chemical Reaction Engineering Group (CREG) have 3 Gas Chromatography (GC) Thermal Conductive Detector (TCD). All of them are HP Agilent 6890 model. We have labeled them as GC 1, GC 2 and GC 3. I have personally used 1 of the older GC-TCD (GC 2) when doing my masters degree 9 years ago. GC 2 is the simplest of our GC-TCD. It can only analyze gasses compound and have only 2 columns inside it which are Molecular sieve and Porapak N column.
GC 1 and GC 3 are far advance then GC 2. Both of the GCs are equipped with Flame Ionization Detector (FID) to analyze liquid product, which in our case are hydrocarbons. That means, GC 1 and 3 can analyze both gasses and liquid compound.

GC 2 and GC 3 (Both Agilent 6890 model) are arranged side by side in one of our research rooms.

On top of the above mentioned GC-TCD, there is also a unit of Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) to power up our analysis capability. This GC-MS is very useful to identify and analyze liquid compound. GC-MS actually combines the features of gas-liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify different substances within a test sample. In our research group we use it to analyze our pyrolysis, biomass, biodiesel liquid fuel and others. I'm not that familiar with GC-MS, but I plan to learn more about it in future. Now, for my ph.D, I'm more focused on using the GC-TCD.

The molecular sieve packed column and Porapak N column in GC 1

Oh yes, we also have one dedicated Perkin Elmer Gas Chromatograph Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID). This GC-FID is very old, I think it has been around for more than 13 years. It has been used previously to analyze our gas to liquid products. Presently, a master student is using it to analyze her biodiesel from waste vegetable oil research.

Of all the GC brands, we have model from HP and Perkin Elmer but not Shimadzu.


Gas Chromatography Thermal Conductive Detector (GC-TCD) Calibration

All our 3 GC-TCD are in great demand now. The research group population has suddenly increased and all of us need to use this imperative analytical equipment. Unfortunately, the GC-TCDs are not in really good condition. Hence, we've called Agilent engineer to come and help us check on the GCs and calibrate it for us.

I wasn't around on the first part of GC-TCD calibration because I was in Kota Kinabalu with my wife and family for the International Conference on Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering in conjunction with the 23rd Symposium of Malaysian Chemical Engineers (SOMCHE 2009). However, my research colleagues were around for the GC-TCD calibration sessions. Unfortunately, the GC-TCDs could not yet be calibrated due to some problem. It was found that the molecular sieve packed column for GC 1 is not working anymore. So, CREG have to order a new mol sieve column.

Agilent engineer is replacing the mol sieve packed column in GC 1

Luckily we managed to order new mol sieve columns and the second GC-TCD calibration session were carried out last week. This time I was around and we work closely with the Agilent engineer. GC 1 has 5 columns inside it and it took some time to work on the valve switching between the valves. The valve switching is an important feature when there are many columns in a GC. This is because a column can only be suitable for certain chemical compound separation, while the others are suitable for other compounds. We calibrated GC 1 with Agilent natural gas standard and successfully managed to get all peaks in the chromatogram at the end of the day.

The engineer is thinking how to solve the mess in GC 3

The next day, the engineer continue worked with GC 2 and GC 3. However, he only managed to touch GC 3 after lunch. GC 3 has more chronic problem, it has one of its capillary column torn. He discovered this problem together with a ph.D student doing Plasma Reaction Research. However, the engineer has successfully connect the capillary column again.

HP capillary column is torn.

Conclusion of GC-TCD Calibration Session

To conclude the GC-TCD calibration session:

GC 1 - Successfully calibrated with Agilent natural gas standard.
GC 2 - Successfully calibrated with Agilent refinery gas standard.
GC 3 - Need to be further calibrated. Probably need 2 days to complete the job. I have contacted Agilent to come and rectify GC 3. We are still waiting the answer from them. I'll follow up with them again tomorrow.

I look forward to conduct my research as soon as possible... :) wish me luck.

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Finally, My First Research Grant..

It has been a very long time since I published my last post. This has been mainly due to the tight schedule I'm experiencing now. Although I am officially a Ph.D student and granted a 3 years study leave, I still have some pending jobs that need to be settled. So, I can't really focus on my studies yet, but I am trying my very best to fully optimize the time that I have.

Doing Ph.D research without any research fund can be considered a nightmare. It has been bugging me since day 1. I have no money to do research. My supervisor also has very limited money and the money need to be well distributed among 10 post graduate students. So, just imagine how tough it is to do and establish our research. We have to try our best to fully optimize our research spending. Doing research is not cheap and requires money to purchase equipment.


Thank God, I received a very good news 3 weeks ago. My name was in the list of lecturer who received Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) from Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE). To be honest, I have tried so hard and submitted 5 research grants before getting this one. All 5 research proposals submitted earlier were rejected and I must say that I felt a little bit disappointed. However, all of those bitter feeling was covered straight away after seeing my name on the list of successful researcher awarded grant from FRGS. My first reaction... I was very speechless and I just could not believe it... I just joined the faculty and within a year I have my own research grant. Hey...that's not bad at all. My career is kicking off quite well... Thank God again :) .

As a student (already 42 days as a Ph.D student), I have to hand over the responsibility as a research project leader to somebody else. This is mainly because, students are not allowed to be a project leader. Remember, I applied for this grant when I was still active as a lecturer. It was quite a headache wandering who to transfer the responsibility. I was hoping my supervisor to take charge of my research grant. However, she could not because she has numerous project under her charge. So, after a while, thanks to my colleague, nicknamed "EEM" (you know who you are) , he suggested another lecturer to replace me as the project leader. So, I approached the candidate and he agreed to be the project leader. I have just settled all arrangement and documentation to hand over the project to a new project leader.

Next upcoming post:

1. My article was just published in Yellow Pages Energy Guide, Malaysia.
2. Experience Sharing with first year chemical engineering students in UTM.
3. Elected as the FKKKSA - Post Graduate Society President!!!
4. What should I write for my first journal as a Ph.D student?
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I'm Now A Chemical Engineering Ph.D Student

Exactly one year ago, I joined Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) as a lecturer in the Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering after almost 6 years working as an engineer. Today, one year as a lecturer, I'm officially a chemical engineering Ph.D student. I'm now on my study leave for three years to do my post graduate study - full time research.

I'm thankful to God for providing me the chance to further my studies and I'm planning to complete my research as soon as possible. When I say as soon as possible, that simply means I plan to complete it under 3 years, if God will. I hope everything will be smooth.

I'm going to update the progress of my research from time to time in this blog as well in my personal facebook status. So, if you are interested to get updated with my progress, you can keep on following me in this blog and also via my facebook account.

If God will, I'll be doing an attachment for my Ph.D studies with Helsinki University in Finland. I'm allowed to do my research there for a maximum of 9 months within the space of 3 years. My co-supervisor will be from there, besides my main supervisor, Prof. Dr. Nor Aishah Saidina Amin in UTM.

You might be wandering what is my Ph.D topic? It's something to do with catalysis engineering and developing a process. I will reveal the topic if there are 17 people asking for it... :) ...

Anybody doing their post graduate studies now? or planning to continue their studies? Maybe you want to share something...