february 2020 Issue 944

The Chemical Engineer

NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE PROCESS INDUSTRIES, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE INSTITUTION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS

HERU makes personal pyrolysis possible

PLUS BUSHFIRE CRISIS / MEAT THE FUTURE / CONTROL ROOM DESIGN / PRE-EMPTING MINING TRAGEDIES

cover944 DG.indd 1 23/01/2020 16:48

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 The Chemical Engineer
Contents, Issue 944
february 2020

20 29

Impossible
40 packaging
Trinity College Cambridge

44 57 David Smith on the importance of

product packing and filling

44 mining
Amanda Jasi speaks to engineers
about technology to spot and prevent
potentially tragic mining failures

48 Viewpoint
Ewan Stewart shares careers advice
following the hard-earned lessons of
retrenchment

52 member survey
Wendy Wilson reports on the actions
News Features from the IChemE Member Engage-
ment Survey
3 Editor’s comment 20 waste management 55 icheme100
Adam Duckett says Australia’s Nik Spencer shows Adam Duckett
John McGagh on the progress of
bushfires should be a wake-up call a personal pyrolysis unit that will
IChemE’s centenary project
for change process household waste into heat
56 learned society
4 News: in numbers 25 viewpoint Claudia Flavell-While outlines the
Andrew Perry looks at the challenge
learned society’s priorities
6 News: in brief of tackling global carbon emissions
57 obituary: John davidson
8 News: in depth 29 food
Calls to the community as Australia Amanda Jasi looks at emerging

burns; Exxon cleared of misleading alternatives to meat and the techni- Regulars
cal challenges to wider production
investors; IEA says oil and gas firms
58 news: icheme
must step up on sustainability; CSB 34 ASSet management
blames lack of hazard identification Paige Marie Morse says chemicals 60 Book review
for fatal MRR blast firms must not delay digitalisation
61 events and courses
14 News: round-up 37 control room design 63 Careers
Andy Brazier discusses best practice
18 News: R&D guidance on control rooms 64 Residue

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 1

contentsv3 DG.indd 1 23/01/2020 17:09

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 The Chemical Engineer
Editor’s comment
A wake-up call for change
adam duckett
T
HE story that has dominated headlines these past
weeks is the awful fires that are scourging Australia.
The scale of the tragedy can be written in numbers
but they are so large it baffles comprehension: more than
10m ha has been burned, as many as 1 bn animals including
wildlife and livestock are estimated to have been killed, and up
to 400m t of CO2 has been released to the atmosphere.
A tragedy of this magnitude should be a wake-up call – a
Pearl Harbour moment – that kickstarts meaningful change.
Australia should ramp up its ambitions on hydrogen, making
use of its wide-open, sun-drenched spaces to pursue solar-
and wind-powered green hydrogen production projects. It
could throw significant money at research and demonstration
projects that would help it pioneer a hydrogen economy. These
are discussed in the article “Hydrogen Down Under” that forms
part of our ongoing series on the hydrogen economy: https://
bit.ly/2v8ddQv
Lamentably, the rhetoric from Australia’s Prime Minister
confirms that a progressive shift on climate policy will not be
forthcoming.
So can business interests lead the change? Investor pressure,
shareholder pressure, public pressure, and fear of losing a social
licence to operate are forcing companies down a greener path
but a report from the IEA calling for the oil and gas industry
to step up and invest in sustainable technologies indicates they
must move much faster (p12).
Could employees put their thumb on the scales? Peter
Coleman, CEO of Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, said in an
interview with Bloomberg that he does not want the energy
industry to be viewed like the tobacco industry, noting it should
do more on climate change. Intriguingly he questioned whether
negative sentiment could impact its ability to recruit staff.
“With new employees coming into the industry, do they want
to be part of an industry that at the moment is getting a bit of a
black eye?” he asked.
Of course, we also need to arm engineers with the tools to
help drive change from within their companies. IChemE’s
Learned Society Committee has announced that it is spearhead-
ing work to produce practical guidance on how to improve the
carbon footprints of plants and processes (p56).
And there is personal responsibility too. As Andrew Perry
notes in his op-ed (p25), tackling global carbon emissions will
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 3
catalyst944 DG.indd 3
be costly and requires tax-payers in democracies to vote for
more expensive energy and consumer goods. While that might
seem unlikely, it calls to mind Charles Mann’s rather challeng-
ing essay State of the Species.
there are examples...where humans have
abandoned profitable self-interest, and perhaps
this hints that our species might have the
wherewithal to avoid collapse
In it, he explains that while humankind has voraciously spread
across the Earth, consuming resources (he convincingly
compares us to a strain of bacteria in a petri dish) there are exam-
ples, including the abolition of slavery, where humans have
abandoned profitable self-interest, and perhaps this hints that
our species might have the wherewithal to avoid collapse.
We should hope so, but widespread change is needed. Read how
it is needed for sustainable protein production, and how chemi-
cal engineers can contribute (p29); how an entrepreneur is on the
cusp of commercialising a pyrolysis unit that could overhaul how
we manage our waste (p20); and with the launch of a dedicated
annual World Engineering Day, how young engineers are being
called on to help advance sustainable development goals (p16).
Our thoughts are of course with those of our community in
Australia. If you have suggestions for what more can be done,
please see the request for feedback on p9.
I welcome reader feedback and comment. To share your views, please
email: letters@icheme.org
Statements and opinions expressed in The Chemical Engineer
are the responsibility of the editor. Unless described as such,
they do not represent the views or policies of the Institution of
Chemical Engineers.
23/01/2020 16:05
 News
IN NUMBERS
2019
second
warmest
year on
record

2019 second warmest year on record

with the global mean temperature being warmer than every year other than
non-profit research organisation, an overall warming trend is clear even with
Survey highlights issues
affecting PhD students
A survey by Nature and UK
education market research
company Shift Learning of
over 63,000 PhD students
worldwide has been used to
provide insight into concerns of
students. The fifth biennial
survey included questions
on mental health, bullying,
2019 has been recorded as the second warmest year since 1850,
2016. According to an analysis by Berkeley Earth, a California-based
natural short-term year-to-year variability. The global mean temperature
o
in 2019 was 1.28 C warmer than the average temperature from
1850–1900, the pre-industrial baseline. 88% of the Earth’s surface
was significantly warmer in 2019 than the average temperature from
1951–1980. 52% of local temperatures had annual temperatures
rated as “very high” compared to historical averages; this would only be
expected to be 2.5% in a stable climate. It was also the
hottest year since records began in 36 countries.
global average temperature 1850–2019
1
0.8

Global temperature anomaly ( ºC)

0.6
harassment, and student debt for
the first time. The survey found 0.4
that 75% of PhD students were 0.2
satisfied with their decision to
pursue a PhD and 71% were
0

generally satisfied with their -0.2

experience. However, 21% -0.4

reported experiencing bullying,
-0.6
21% experienced discrimination,
and 36% sought help for -0.8
1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020
anxiety or depression related to
their studies. Just under half Land data prepared by Berkeley Earth and combined with ocean data adapted from the UK Hadley Centre
reported a long-hours culture at Global temperature anomalies relative to 1951–1980 average

their university, and nearly a fifth

Vertical lines indicate 95% confidence intervals

have jobs alongside their PhD. Credit Berkeley Earth

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 4

numbers944 DG.indd 4 23/01/2020 11:11

 news in numbers

Aramco IPO success

Saudi Aramco began publicly trading on 11 December
with a 1.5% share sale of the company raising
US$25.6bn, making it the largest initial public
offering (IPO) ever. The company was valued at
US$1.7trn, however on the second day of trading, an
increase in share prices brought the company’s value to
US$2trn. However share prices have since decreased
Zero carbon fuels beat fossil and Aramco was valued at US$1.85trn on 12
fuels in 2019 January. The company used an over-allotment option to
Britain generated more of its electricity from zero allow it to sell 450m additional shares during the first 30
carbon fuels than fossil fuels in 2019, making it the days of trading, bringing the IPO sale up to
cleanest year for electrical energy on record. Nuclear and US$29.4bn on 12 January.
renewables produced 48.5% of electricity, compared
to 43% from fossil fuels. The remaining 8.5% was
generated by biomass. The National Grid also revealed
plans to invest almost £10bn (US$11.7bn)
in gas and electricity networks over the next five
years. Around £1bn will be used for a transition
to a net zero carbon electricity system by 2025,
and £85m will be used towards low-carbon
home heating solutions.

Fast track entry to UK

Oil and gas for top scientists
discoveries hit The UK Home Secretary has announced that the number
four-year high of eligible fellowships for accelerated visas for scientists
Rystad Energy has estimated wanting to come to the UK to conduct research will double
that 12.2bn boe of oil and from 62 to over 120. This follows the announcement in
gas was discovered globally in August 2019 by the Prime Minister to abolish the cap on
2019, making it the highest numbers under the Tier 1 (exceptional talent) visa.
volume discovered since 2015.
26 of the discoveries had more
than 100m boe each. The Nuclear reactor shutdowns outweigh
single largest discovery was BP’s startups in 2019
Orca gas field off the coast of
Mauritania at around 1.3bn
Six new nuclear reactors were added in 2019 across
the world, with a combined capacity of 5,241 MWe,
boe. ExxonMobil made four new
discoveries with a combined compared to 10,420 MWe of new capacity in 2018,
1.07 boe. Rystad Energy and 3,345 MWe in 2017. The construction of three
estimates that 2020 will new reactor projects began, and nine units with a
continue the rising trend capacity of 5,976 MWe were shut down. There are
of discoveries. 442 reactors worldwide with a combined net capacity
of 392.4 GWe.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 5

numbers944 DG.indd 5 23/01/2020 11:11

 NEWS IN BRIEF

Ineos to build world-

scale styrene plant
in China
INEOS Styrolution, a global styrenics
supplier, is to build a 600,000 t/y
greenfield acrylonitrile butadiene
styrene (ABS) plant in Ningbo, Zhejiang
Province, China.
ABS is a lightweight, durable plastic
used in a range of products. It is being
used increasingly in cars and other
transportation for body panels, spoilers,
bumpers, and interiors to reduce weight
and improve designs. Additional uses
include medical devices for blood access,
enclosures for electrical and electronic
assemblies, and protective headgear.
Steve Harrington, President of Ineos
Prince William launches Earthshot Styrolution Asia-Pacific, commented:
“China is the biggest ABS market in the
Prize to repair the planet world. This new investment will give
us a tremendous opportunity to pro-
PRINCE WILLIAM has launched a new initiative, billed as the world’s most pres- vide our customers in the region with
tigious environmental prize, that seeks to inspire a decade of action to repair locally-produced ABS grades.”
our planet. Construction is to begin this year,
Over the coming year, the Earthshot Prize will unveil a number of challenges with completion planned for 2023.
at events around the world, seeking answers to issues relating to climate, energy,
nature, biodiversity, oceans, air pollution, and fresh water.
The prizes will reward progress across all sectors of industry and society. They JV will proceed with
could be awarded to individuals, teams, or collaborations, including scientists,
activities, businesses, cities, and countries that make a substantial development or
world-scale anhydrous
outstanding contribution to solving environmental challenges. ammonia plant
A statement announcing the initiative’s launch said a prize will be awarded to
five winners per year over ten years with the ambition of providing at least 50 GULF Coast Ammonia (GCA), owned by a
solutions to the world’s greatest problems by 2030. Specific details of the joint venture (JV) of Starwood Energy –
challenges or prizes have not been released. which specialises in energy infrastructure
investments – and oil trading company
Mabanaft, has reached a final invest-
ment decision (FID) for the world’s largest
BASF sells Construction agreement has immediate effect on BASF single train ammonia synthesis loop.

Chemicals to Lone Star sales and earning reportings, which will

GLOBAL private equity firm Lone Star has
signed a purchase agreement to acquire
BASF’s Construction Chemicals business.
The business has production sites
and sales offices in more than 60 coun-
tries and more than 7,000 employees.
Lone Star has agreed a purchase price of
€3.17bn (US$3.53bn). The transaction is
expected to close in Q3 of 2020 but the
no longer include Construction Chemicals.
Donald Quintin, President of Europe
at Lone Star, said: “We highly value the
industry-wide recognised knowledge
and competence of BASF’s Construction
Chemicals experts, backed by a strong
track record in innovative products and a
compelling R&D pipeline. We look forward
to jointly pursuing a growth-oriented
business approach.”
The approximately 1.3m t/y facility is
to be located within an industrial chemi-
cal site in Texas City, Texas, US.
Construction is to begin in early 2020
and commissioning is expected in the
first half of 2023.
According to newly-appointed GCA
CEO Ken Koye, the facility will “meet
domestic and global demands for
nitrogen-based fertilisers to improve crop
production and yields to feed the world’s

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 6

NIB944 DG.indd 6 23/01/2020 16:00

 NEWS IN BRIEF
growing population, as well as specialty
chemical production on the Texas Gulf Poliakoff receives
Coast.”
China’s highest honour
for foreign scientists
NZ PM visits milk
processing plant to BRITISH chemist Sir Martyn Poliakoff
has received the 2019 International
see novel boiler Science and Technology Cooperation
Award of the People’s Republic of China,
NEW ZEALAND Prime Minister Jacinda the country’s highest honour for foreign
Ardern visited milk processing company scientists.
Synlait on 12 December for a tour of The award recognises the key role
the country’s first large-scale electrode foreign scientists have played in China’s
boiler and to help launch the company’s scientific development and reflects the
new tree-planting initiative. nation’s increasing efforts to diversify its
Synlait’s Dunsandel facility has a pro- scientific partners over recent years.
cessing capacity of more than 4.2m l/d Sir Martyn, IChemE Fellow and
of milk, from which it can produce up to Research Professor at the University of
440 t of milk powder. Ardern’s visit Nottingham, UK, was one of ten sci-
included a tour of the company’s novel entists who won the 2019 award. He
6 MW electrode boiler which provides was given his certificate by China’s
renewable process heat for the com- President, Xi Jinping at a formal
pany’s dairy liquid packing facility. It ceremony in Beijing, in front of an
generates steam that is used to pasteur- audience of 3,000 people.
ise and sterilise milk, clean equipment, Sir Martyn’s research is focussed on
and assist in forming product packaging. the chemical applications of supercritical
For the tree-planting initiative, called fluids, particularly for ‘green’ chemistry.
“Whakapuāwai”, Synlait is creating a He is also the face of the popular YouTube
15 ha nursery for native plants. The site channel Periodic Videos. As the Foreign
will grow 1m native trees and shrubs per Secretary of the UK’s Royal Society, he
year, with the goal of replanting them on has worked extensively with the Chinese
farms and community land. Academy of Sciences.
honoured: Sir Martyn Poliakoff
with Xi Jinping
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 7
NIB944 DG.indd 7
Online only
Dam collapse charges
As we go to press, Brazilian prose-
cutors have charged 16 people with
homicide and environmental crimes
relating to the 2019 collapse of a
dam owned by mining giant Vale,
which killed at least 259 people.
Those charged include ex-Vale CEO
Fabio Schvartsman, as well as other
former and current executives of
Vale and Tüv Süd, Vale’s conracted
safety inspector. The companies
themselves were also charged.
https://bit.ly/30MVbz2
Talking for success
Jimmy Hunter recounts an exam-
ple from his time at South African
chemicals company AECI to demon-
strate how technical arrogance and
poor communication can easily
derail the development of break-
through process engineering.
https://bit.ly/3aBoN78
Analytical imperfection
In their first paper together,
Volunteer Chair of IChemE’s Loss
Prevention Bulletin Editorial Panel
Fiona Macleod and Erik Hollnagel
look at imperfections in accident
analysis and offer four key ideas to
help understanding of the real world
of work. The full paper is available to
read free-of-charge.
https://bit.ly/38ueBLC
Global Awards playlist
A video playlist of IChemE’s 2019
Global Awards – hosted by actor
Warwick Davis – is now available to
view on IChemE’s Youtube Channel.
https://bit.ly/2RdipLr
23/01/2020 16:00

climate crisis
As bushfires rage, engineers are
called to action
Understand your hazards, and feed back your priorities
WITH bushfires devastating large areas
of Australia, there are calls for engineers
to help reduce risks and come forward
with expertise and ideas.
As we go to press, Australia is in the
grip of a national tragedy, with bush-
fires having burned through more than
10m ha of land, killing at least 30 people
and millions of animals. While Australia’s
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has come
in for fierce criticism including for down-
playing the influence of climate change,
CSIRO, the country’s national science
research agency is explicit, noting that:
“Human-caused climate change has
resulted in more dangerous weather
conditions for bushfires”.
These fires have burned throughout
the country but New South Wales and
Victoria have been hardest hit. A combina-
tion of factors including lengthy droughts
and record temperatures have increased
the risk of bushfires, which have been
sparked by lightning and fanned by brisk
winds through parched vegetation.
Industries hit
Industries directly affected include
those reliant on the land, including pulp
and paper manufacturers, winemakers,
and the dairy industry.
“Plantation trees provide more than
80% of the timber and fibre products
we produce as a nation, and for years
we haven’t been able to even fill our
own needs,” said Ross Hampton, CEO
of the Australian Forest Products Asso-
ciation. He added that the downstream
consequences for rural communities will
be severe.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 8
NIDaus DG.indd 8
NEWS in depth
“These trees take ten years, in the case
of trees for paper and cardboard making,
or 30 years, in the case of the pine trees
used for house framing, to grow. So
when the fires are finally contained, it
will be like a slow motion train crash
as the full downstream consequences
are felt.”
the downstream consequences
for rural communities will
be severe...when the fires
are finally contained, it will
be like a slow motion train
crash as the full downstream
consequences are felt
Hampton has called for government to
help replant lost plantations and thin
areas at risk in line with how indigenous
Australians used to manage the forests.
It will take time to understand the
full impact on the dairy industry, which
has been suffering droughts and is now
counting its loss of cattle. Australia
is the world’s fourth-largest exporter
of dairy products, with around 6% of
market share according to figures from
national body Dairy Australia. This
includes milk, milk powder and butter
exported chiefly to Asia. Reuters reports
that even before the fires, drought had
been projected to drive milk production
to a 22-year low.
However, Bega Cheese, one of the
largest of Australia’s dairy companies,
has said that the fires have affected
only a small proportion of suppliers and
had minimal impact on its processing
operations.
Smoke effects
While most vineyards have escaped
direct fire damage, there are warnings
that smoke could taint this year’s produc-
tion. According to Tony Battaglene,
CEO of the industry group Australian
Grape and Wine, around 1% of vine-
yards have been destroyed by fires, with
the Adelaide Hills region particularly
affected.
“The bigger impact is the potential
for smoke damage,” he told Bloomberg
on 21 January. This can impact the
flavour of wine but the impact won’t be
known until grapes begin to ripen.
Drifting smoke has blanketed large
parts of Australia including Canberra,
Melbourne and Sydney, posing risks to
public health. These air quality issues
have also disrupted industrial opera-
tions, with BHP and Whitehaven Coal
warning that smoke and poor visibility
are hampering coal output.
The irony of this has not been lost on
environmentalists, with Rachel Kenner-
ley, Climate Campaigner at Friends
of the Earth noting: “Perhaps having
production impacted by bushfire smoke
will finally hit home how important it is
that we stop burning fossil fuels.”
Meanwhile, utilities have been
fighting to maintain supplies. Water
New South Wales has deployed silt
curtains and booms at the Warragamba
Dam to prevent ash and debris from
being washed by rain into drinking
water supplies. State water minister
Melinda Pavey said protecting Sydney’s
supplies is a priority: “We have worked
closely with the [rural fire service] to
ensure fire retardant chemicals used
23/01/2020 16:10
 NEWS in depth

NASA Earth Observatory

near Warragamba Dam are appropriate, Kangaroo Island, South Australia: Fires have ravaged half of the island,
and that exclusion zones were in place threatening rare animal species and killing more than 100,000 livestock
to avoid the use of retardants in close
proximity to water where possible.”

Community response
Asked where the chemical engineering
community should focus its attention
in response to the bushfires, Trish
Kerin, Director of the IChemE Safety
Centre said: “The current events in
Australia highlight the need to plan for
environmental impacts on our oper-
ations. Natech – which stands for
‘natural hazard triggering technological
disasters’ – require specific assessment
and management to ensure that hazards
are understood and addressed. A key
element here is to not discount scenarios
based on likelihood, but to assume that
they could occur, and plan accordingly.
“We have seen fire ash and smoke
impact many industries and create
hazardous situations. We must focus
on hazard reduction and adaptation
by engineering in resilience to natural
disasters. Look at your facilities and
their environment and think about what
could occur there – how well equipped
are you to handle a natural disaster,
when emergency services may not be
available to you?”
David Wood, a former chair of
IChemE’s Australian Board, who was
evacuated from his home due to bush-
fires in northeast Victoria, has called for
a wider community project: “Australia
can be considered as a massive chemical
plant for which no HAZOP study has
ever been undertaken. We are paying the
price for this right now. Maybe chemical
engineers can contribute by using our
hazard experts to undertake a HAZOP
analysis for ‘Project Australia’. For
example, we could look at the hazards
associated with explosive materials,
including eucalyptus oil from gum
trees. From this an appropriate policy
could be derived for minimising the
effects of future bushfires in Australia
and elsewhere.”
IChemE has issued a joint request
along with Engineers Australia for the
community to provide input on how
both can support Australia during these
testing times: “We would value any
feedback on those areas that you and
other engineering colleagues see as a
priority, and how we might prioritise
the resources and capabilities of IChemE
and Engineers Australia members.
Please provide any suggestions via
fireresponse@engineersaustralia.org.au.”
Australia’s reaction
How Australia’s politicians will respond
remains to be seen. Morrison, before
he became Prime Minister, famously
brandished a lump of coal in parlia-
ment, saying: “Don’t be scared! Won’t
hurt you!” He has now rejected calls
for the tragedy to prompt a more ambi-
tious climate policy. The country has
been accused of charting a lonesome
and morally-dubious path to meeting
emissions targets, one that could rely
on accountancy tricks involving emis-
sions credits rolled over from earlier
schemes.
The Prime Minister has argued
that any policy must be balanced
with broader economic interests that
don’t damage jobs or Australia’s
resource industries. But this ambition
is increasingly under threat. BlackRock,
the world’s largest investment fund
manager, said in January that it would
abandon investments that carry high
sustainability-related risk, including
thermal coal, of which Australia is one
of the largest producers.
Industry is evidently feeling the
pressure too, with Peter Coleman, the
CEO of Australian energy firm Woodside
Petroleum telling an oil and gas confer-
ence that companies must be part of
the solution: “We are not the cigarette
industry and do not want to be viewed
as such.”
Coleman said the bushfires should
trigger a heightened response on
tackling climate change, The Australian
reports.
“I think you’ve got to let us get
through the triage of trying to repair
what’s happened and then that debate
needs to occur and it needs to occur
quickly.” AD
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren
Dauphin, using Landsat data from the US
Geological Survey.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 9

NIDaus DG.indd 9 23/01/2020 16:10

 NEWS in depth

photo-denver / Shutterstock.com
cleared: the state of New York claimed that the company had deceived
investors over the business costs of policies relating to the climate crisis

business

ExxonMobil cleared of misleading

investors about cost of climate crisis
Meanwhile, similar lawsuit continues in Massachusetts

EXXONMOBIL has been acquitted in a
lawsuit brought against it by the state
of New York, which had claimed that the
company had deceived investors over
the business costs of policies relating to
the climate crisis.
The financial fraud lawsuit was filed
on 24 October 2018 by then New York
Attorney General Barbara Underwood,
following years of investigation. The
trial took place between 22 October and 7
November 2019, where current Attorney
General Letitia James attempted to show
that ExxonMobil had kept two sets of
books for estimating the cost of comply-
ing with policies on the climate crisis.
On 10 December, Barry Ostrager, New
York Supreme Court Judge, ruled that
the state didn’t show that ExxonMobil
broke state fraud laws in its description
to stakeholders.
“The Office of the Attorney General
failed to prove, by a preponderance of
the evidence, that ExxonMobil made
any material misstatements or omis-
sions about its practices and procedures
that misled any reasonable investor,”
Ostrager wrote in his decision.
Different ways of
calculating emissions costs
The Attorney General attempted to use a
New York state anti-fraud law, known as
the Martin Act, to show that ExxonMobil
committed fraud in how it calculated the
impact of the climate crisis on business.
Under the Act, James only needed to
prove that investors had been deceived,
and did not need to prove intent by the
company. James claimed that Exxon-
Mobil had used two different accounting
measures, one public and one private,
to assess business risks. The complaint
stated that ExxonMobil privately used
much lower figures which allowed it
to make carbon-heavy investments. It
estimated that damages to shareholders
were between US$476m and US$1.6bn.
However, no testimony was given by an
investor claiming to have been misled.
During the closing arguments, the
Attorney General’s office dropped two of
the four fraud counts.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 10

NIDExxon DG.indd 10 22/01/2020 16:12


ExxonMobil explained its use of the
two different costs, in a statement
made in October 2019. “In the absence
of a uniform, globally-accepted cost of
carbon, ExxonMobil uses two distinct
metrics to account for the impact
of current and potential climate-
related regulations. The first is a ‘proxy
cost’ which is intended to reflect the
impact of all climate polices that could
reduce demand for oil and natural gas
globally. The other, a greenhouse gas
cost or ‘GHG cost’, reflects actual costs
that might be imposed directly on the
emissions of oil and gas projects as a
result of specific laws in a jurisdic-
tion, for example. ExxonMobil applies
proxy costs and GHG costs precisely as
disclosed and takes both into account
to help make sound business decisions
and meet its fiduciary responsibilities to
shareholders.”
Ostrager ruled that ExxonMobil
had been transparent about its two
cost calculation methods and therefore
didn’t mislead investors.
Ostrager ruled that ExxonMobil
had been transparent about
its two cost calculation
methods and therefore
didn’t mislead investors
ExxonMobil said in a statement:
“[This] ruling affirms the position
ExxonMobil has held throughout the
New York Attorney General’s baseless
investigation. We provided our inves-
tors with accurate information on the
risks of climate change. The court
agreed that the Attorney General failed
to make a case, even with the extremely
low threshold of the Martin Act in its
favour. Lawsuits that waste millions of
dollars of taxpayer money do nothing
to advance meaningful actions that
reduce the risks of climate change.
ExxonMobil will continue to invest in
researching breakthrough technologies
to reduce emissions while meeting soci-
ety’s growing demand for energy.”
James released a statement following
Ostrager’s decision: “For the first time
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 11
NIDExxon DG.indd 11
NEWS in depth
in history, ExxonMobil was compelled
to answer publicly for their internal
decisions that misled investors. The oil
giant never took seriously the severe
economic impact that climate change
regulations would have on the company,
contrary to what they were telling the
public. Throughout this case, we laid
out how Exxon made materially false,
misleading, and confusing representa-
tions to the American people about the
company’s response to climate change
regulations. Exxon’s inability to tell the
truth further underscores the lies that
have been sold to the American public
for decades. Despite this decision, we
will continue to fight to ensure compa-
nies are held responsible for actions that
undermine and jeopardise the financial
health and safety of Americans across
our country, and we will continue to
fight to end climate change.”
Massachusetts lawsuit
According to The Washington Post,
Michael Gerrard, a professor of envi-
ronmental law at Columbia Law School,
said: “The New York suit was based on
one specific alleged violation of a statute
that is peculiar to New York. That theory
didn’t fly. But it has little bearing on
the wide variety of other legal theories
that are being deployed in climate
change cases.”
Even Ostrager admitted in his
decision that ExxonMobil should still
take responsibility for its emissions.
“Nothing in this opinion is intended to
absolve ExxonMobil from responsibil-
ity for contributing to climate change
through the emission of greenhouse
gases. But ExxonMobil is in the business
of producing energy, and this is a
securities fraud case, not a climate
change case.”
A similar lawsuit was filed against
ExxonMobil by Massachusetts Attorney
General Maura Healey on 24 October
2019. In this case, the Attorney General
has also accused ExxonMobil of system-
atically and intentionally misleading
investors over the business risks of the
climate crisis, but in addition accuses
the company of violating the state
Consumer Protection Act by deceiving
consumers over the role that fossil fuels
play in the climate crisis.
“Exxon has known for decades
about the catastrophic climate impacts
of burning fossil fuels – its chief
product,” said Healey. “Yet, to this day,
Exxon continues to deceive Massachu-
setts consumers and investors about
the dangerous climate harms caused
by its oil and gasoline products and the
significant risks of climate change –
and efforts to address it – to Exxon’s
business. We are suing to stop this illegal
deception and penalise the company for
its misconduct.”
According to the complaint, as
early as the 1980s one of the
company’s scientists described
the consequences of climate
change as “catastrophic”
According to the complaint, as early as
the 1980s one of the company’s scien-
tists described the consequences of
climate change as “catastrophic”, and
ExxonMobil was aware that a reduction
in emissions would require the curtail-
ment of fossil fuels. ExxonMobil was
also warned by a financial expert that
the rise in global temperatures would
have “major economic consequences”.
The complaint alleges that Exxon
concealed this information and failed to
disclose the economic consequences to
investors.
The complaint also notes that Exxon-
Mobil-branded fuel stations claim that
its fuels “reduce energy use and CO2
emissions,” and enhance “environ-
mental performance.” The complaint
alleges that it is deceptive to consumers
to market fossil fuels as a solution to the
climate crisis.
According to an investigation by
The Guardian, ExxonMobil is one of 20
fossil fuel companies responsible for
over a third of energy-related emissions
since 1965, and ExxonMobil has released
almost 42bn t of CO2 equivalent in that
time. APD
22/01/2020 16:12

environment
IEA calls on oil and gas to ‘step
up’ its climate change efforts
il and gas must be firmly and fully on board
THE oil and gas industry needs to “step
up” climate change efforts, says the
International Energy Agency (IEA). As the
world increasingly shifts to clean energy
transitions, it risks losing long-term
social acceptability and profitability if it
fails to address growing calls to reduce
greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
In its recent report il and as Industry in
Energy Transitions, IEA maps out the risks
facing different parts of the industry and
lays out a range of potential responses. IEA
says the industry’s landscape is diverse
so there is no single strategic response,
rather a variety of approaches depending
on a company’s circumstances.
All parts of the industry need to reduce
the environmental footprint of their oper-
ations, and the report states that many
cost-effective opportunities exist that
would allow it to do so.
15% of global energy-related GHG
emissions come from the process of
getting oil and gas from the ground and
to consumers. The single most import-
ant and cost-effective way to reduce these
emissions is by reducing methane leaks,
says the report. Additionally, further
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NID3 DG.indd 12
NEWS in depth
cost-effective opportunities exist to help
reduce GHG emissions by minimising
flaring activity and venting of CO2, and
integrating renewables and low-carbon
electricity into new upstream and liquid
natural gas (LNG) developments.
Industry needs to invest more signifi-
cantly in renewables and other low-carbon
technologies, according to the report.
Whilst some oil and gas companies are
diversifying their energy operations,
investment into non-core businesses has
only accounted for about 1% of total capital
expenditure and there is little sign of
major change.
The reports states that investment in
low-carbon hydrogen, biomethane, and
advanced biomethane is vital, “as these
can deliver the energy system benefits of
hydrocarbons without net carbon emis-
sions”. Within 10 years these low-carbon
fuels need to account for around 15% of
overall investment in fuel supply to help
tackle climate change.
Fatih Birol, Executive Director of IEA,
said: “Oil and gas companies can play a
crucial role in accelerating deployment of
key renewable options such as offshore
wind, while also enabling some key
capital-intensive clean energy technologies
– such as carbon capture, utilisation and
storage and hydrogen – to reach maturity.”
He added that without industry input
these technologies may never achieve the
scale required to impact emissions.
IEA expects low-carbon electricity to
play a central role in the future energy
mix. However according to its report,
the investment in oil and gas will still
be required – even in rapid clean energy
transitions. This is because if investment
in existing producing fields were to stop,
production would decrease by about 8%
per year, which is larger than any plausible
fall in global demand.
According to the report, whilst it would
be possible for the energy sector to trans-
form without the oil and gas industry,
it would be “more difficult and more
expensive”.
Birol said: “The scale of the climate
challenge requires a broad coalition
encompassing governments, investors,
companies and everyone else who is genu-
inely committed to reducing emissions...
That effort requires the oil and gas industry
to be firmly and fully on board.”
Previously, Oil and Gas Authority
Chairman Tim Eggar also called on the
industry to do more to help solve climate
change and to drive net zero.
Last year, Transition Pathway Initiative,
which assesses companies’ preparedness
for the transition to a low carbon economy,
reported that among 100 energy compa-
nies only two of the oil and gas companies
it has analysed – Shell and Repsol – were
aligned with national emissions reduc-
tions pledges made in line with Paris
climate change targets. Aj
23/01/2020 13:56

risk & safety
CSB releases report on MRR
tank explosion
ack of ha ard identification contributed to fatal accident
THE US Chemical Safety Board (CSB)
has found that a lack of hazard identifi-
cation processes contributed to the tank
explosions that killed three people at
the Midland Resource Recovery (MRR)
facility in West Virginia in 2017.
One of the services performed by
MRR is the decommissioning of the
tanks used to add the odourants known
as mercaptans to natural gas. The MRR
process added sodium hypochlorite to
the odouriser vessels to remove the
odour from the steel so that it could be
scrapped. The vessels were sealed for a
time, creating what MRR referred to as
process water. On 24 May 2017, when the
process water was being drained from
a tank, an explosion occurred which
killed two workers, one of whom was the
founder and President of MRR. Another
worker was seriously injured. A second
explosion occurred on 20 June which
killed a contractor who had been hired
by MRR to perform investigation and
mitigation work.
The CSB also found research
which suggested that the
methanol mixed with sodium
hypochlorite can form
methyl hypochlorite, a highly
explosive chemical
After the initial explosion, CSB began
an investigation which found that it was
plausible that methanol was also present
in the MRR tanks as it was sometimes
used to wash tanks. The CSB also found
research which suggested that the
methanol mixed with sodium hypo-
chlorite can form methyl hypochlorite,
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NID4 DG.indd 13
NEWS in depth
a highly explosive chemical. The final
report states that the MRR process had
created the possibility that each chem-
ically treated odouriser was essentially
a bomb.
MRR’s legal counsel had hired
contractor Specialized Professional
Services (SPSI) to drain the remain-
ing tanks. The CSB was not allowed to
communicate its findings to SPSI and
an MRR attorney said SPSI had a differ-
ent theory as to the cause of the original
explosion. The CSB investigators on site
took shelter behind a shipping container.
When SPSI attempted to drain a tank on
20 June, an explosion occurred which
killed the SPSI field supervisor.
The CSB report determined that
there was no way to know exactly
what chemicals were present in the
odourisers at the time of the explo-
sions, but concluded that dangerous
reactions occurred when the tanks were
unsealed. The presence of methanol is
one possible explanation. The CSB found
that MRR did not have a formal hazard
identification process to analyse the
chemicals inside the odouriser vessels.
MRR allowed the sodium hypochlo-
rite to sit in the odourisers for over a
month, potentially allowing unstable
chemicals to form. It had no estab-
lished limits on how long the sodium
hypochlorite should be left for and did
not accurately control the dilution of
sodium hypochlorite. There were also
no safeguards to prevent uncontrolled
chemical reactions.
CSB Interim Executive Author-
ity Kristen Kulinowski said: “MRR did
not have, and federal regulations did
not require, a comprehensive safety
management system to identify and
control hazards from reactive chemi-
cals. As a result, two serious explosions
occurred.”
The CSB has issued key lessons
for companies that deal with reactive
chemistry. These include the need for
a robust safety management system to
prevent reactive chemical incidents and
the need for a thorough and complete
understanding of the reactive chemistry.
“The CSB has long
been concerned about the
persisting gaps in federal
safety regulations for
reactive chemical hazards,
and tragic incidents like the
two explosions at MRR
continue to occur”
The CSB has been calling on the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Administration
(OSHA) and the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) since 2002 to cover
reactive chemicals and hazards in their
regulations, but neither agency has
acted on the CSB’s recommendations.
“The CSB has long been concerned
about the persisting gaps in federal
safety regulations for reactive chemical
hazards, and tragic incidents like the
two explosions at MRR continue to
occur,” said Kulinowski. “It is past
time for OSHA and the EPA to adopt our
recommendations to update their regu-
lations to cover catastrophic reactive
hazards that have the potential to seri-
ously affect workers and the public.”
MRR still decommissions vessels but
no longer uses sodium hypochlorite. APD
22/01/2020 16:05
 Repsol NEWS round-up

towards net zero: repsol business

tarragona refinery
DuPont buys out UCD
spinout OxyMem
DUPONT has bought out OxyMem, a waste-
water technology company that was spun out
of University College Dublin’s (UCD’s) School
of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.
The company was founded in 2013 and
now has more than 60 employees work-
ing at a production site in Athlone, Ireland.
Its membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR)
technology is used in more than 30 water
treatment works across the world. The
technology boasts higher efficiencies than
conventional activated sludge plants and can
be retrofitted into existing operations.
DuPont, which has been an investor in
OxyMem for four years, owned 31% of the
company but announced in December that it
had exercised an option to acquire the entire
environment company. Company co-founder Eoin Casey,
who is Head of the School of Chemical and
Bioprocess Engineering at UCD, said: “Water
Repsol outlines net zero utilities spend a substantial amount of energy
on the treatment of wastewater. The OxyMem
2050 target MABR provides energy savings of up to 75%
and is now seen as a solution that helps move
SPAIN’S oil and gas firm Repsol has outlined plans to be carbon neutral by 2050. wastewater treatment closer to carbon neu-
To achieve the goal, it first plans to reduce carbon intensity against a 2016 trality. It is gratifying to see that a technology
baseline by 10% by 2025, 20% by 2030, 40% by 2030, and achieve net zero emis- that started out in a university laboratory less
sions by 2050. This will involve increasing production of biofuels and chemicals than ten years ago is now being deployed at
with a low-carbon footprint; making use of CCS; using renewables and producing full-scale in more than 14 countries.”
hydrogen to power its refining operations; and if necessary off-setting emissions OxyMem is one of a small number of com-
through reforestation and other natural carbon sinks. panies, including SUEZ and Fluence, pushing
Specifically, it says it wants 20% recycled content in its polyolefin output by the application of MABR technologies. The
2030, though projects demand for petrochemical products will increase by 30% to purchase of OxyMem adds to DuPont’s exist-
2030 and 40% to 2050. A more detailed strategy covering 2021-25 will be released ing stable of water purification and separation
later this year. technologies that include ultrafiltration and
“We are convinced that we must set more ambitious objectives to fight climate ion exchange resins. While conventional acti-
change. We believe now it is the right time for Repsol,” said CEO Josu Jon Imaz. vated sludge treatment processes bubble
Repsol says that due to the Paris climate change targets and the need to reduce oxygen through bacteria suspended in solu-
emissions it has re-evaluated its assets and is writing down the value of them by tion to decompose organic waste, OxyMem’s
€4.8bn. technology feeds oxygen through hollow tube
To ensure its plans are aligned to these goals, each major investment will now membranes to biofilms of bacteria that coat
be accompanied by a sustainability report, and its executives’ pay will be linked to the outside of the membranes. OxyMem has
compliance with Paris climate goals to ensure decarbonisation. developed a poreless gas-permeable mem-
Earlier this year, the Transition Pathway Initiative, representing investors brane made of silicone. The company says
managing more than US$15trn worth of assets, reported that among more than the air in the membrane fibres does not need
100 energy companies it had analysed just two oil and gas companies – Shell to overcome hydro-static head as compared
and Repsol – are aligned with the emission reduction pledges made by national to conventional aeration systems, which
governments in line with the Paris climate change targets. allows it to operate at much lower pressures
and provide significant energy savings.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 14

Newsroundup944 DG.indd 14 23/01/2020 16:45

 NEWS round-up
the profession
IChemE Fellows feature as
experts in TV documentary
about engineering safety
THREE IChemE Fellows are featuring as experts in a new ten-
part television documentary series about engineering safety
incidents, aired on the UK Discovery Channel.
The Disasters Engineered series features Dame Judith Hackitt,
former Chair of the Health and Safety Executive; Fiona Macleod,
Chair of the IChemE Loss Prevention Bulletin Editorial Panel; and
Geoffrey Maitland, Professor of Energy Engineering at Imperial Col-
lege London. They provide technical accounts and share insights
into what lessons safety professionals have learned.
Each episode will look at two incidents, with the first
episode that aired on 15 January featuring the Deepwater Horizon and
Challenger Space Shuttle disasters. The series will examine the
causes of the incidents and what changes have been implemented
in industry as a result.
Dame Judith, who led the independent review of high-rise
building regulations following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 said:
“There are much bigger lessons to be learned from failures. These
risk & safety
Explosion at Spanish ethylene oxide
plant
AN explosion at an ethylene oxide facility in Tarragona, Spain, has
killed three people and injured seven others. The explosion occurred
on 14 January. One worker was found dead at the scene and another
died in hospital around 24 hours later. A member of the public was
killed when a 1 t piece of metal from the site landed on an apart-
ment block around 3 km away. Seven workers at the plant were also
injured. The plant is operated by Industrias Químicas del Óxido de
Etileno (IQOXE) and is owned by the Spanish conglomerate CL Grupo
Industrial. According to IQOXE CEO José Luis Morlanes, the explosion
occurred in a 20 t ethylene oxide tank. A company spokesperson told
Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) that the explo-
sion began in a reactor which then ignited the storage tank nearby.
Authorities said no toxic substances were released, although a
temporary shelter-in-place was issued for residents before this was
confirmed. According to Spanish news website The Local, IQOXE has
come under criticism by the deputy head of the region’s civil protec-
tion division, Sergi Delgado, for delaying warnings to the public, as no
sirens went off. IQOXE is Spain’s only producer of ethylene oxide, with
a capacity of 140,000 t/y.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 15
Newsroundup944 DG.indd 15
left to right: geoffrey maitland, dame judith hackitt and fiona
macleod share insights into what safety professionals learned
lessons can be learned and applied across sectors and disciplines, so
it’s important that we collectively encourage a culture that responds
in a constructive way to the reporting of these incidents and sharing
lessons to help prevent future occurrences.”
Maitland, who is an expert in deep-water drilling and chaired
an independent review of the UK Offshore Oil and Gas Regulatory
Regime, said: “Thankfully, incidents like those featured are rare,
but they highlight that engineering processes are complicated and
require skilled engineering professionals, careful management, and
clear communication to manage them effectively, and minimise
damage and losses when issues do occur.”
Macleod said: “We must continue to share lessons with
financial decision-makers, politicians, our peers in academia,
industry, across the different sectors and engineering disciplines to
enhance safety for everyone and wider society.”
business
BP sells North Sea assets to
Premier Oil
BP is selling its North Sea interests in the Andrew area and its
non-operating interests in the Shearwater field to Premier Oil.
BP will sell the Andrew platform, along with its stake in the
five fields that produce through the platform and its 27.5% stake
in the Shell-operated Shearwater field. The total cost of the sale to
Premier Oil is US$625m.
The Andrew platform is around 225 km northeast of Aberdeen
and produced an average of 25,000–30,000 boe/d in 2019. The
Shearwater region is located around 225 km east of Aberdeen and
can produce 14,000 boe/d.
Ariel Flores, BP North Sea Regional President, said: “BP has been
reshaping its portfolio in the North Sea to focus on core growth
areas, including the Clair, Quad 204 and ETAP hubs.” She added
that production requiring short development time and a low devel-
opment costs are being added to hubs through the Alligin, Vorlich
and Seagull tieback projects.
The sale comes as part of BP’s plan to divest US$10bn in assets
by the end of 2020. The sale is expected to complete in the third
quarter of 2020.
23/01/2020 16:45

environment
World Engineering
Day set for 4 March
WORLD Engineering Day for Sus-
tainable Development will
celebrated on 4 March every year
as a UNESCO international day of
celebration.
The day was formally proclaimed
by the UN body at a meeting in
November following a proposal led
by the World Federation of Engi-
neering Organisations (WFEO). All
engineering organisations including
employers and professional engi-
neering institutions are invited to
celebrate the day and use it to raise
awareness about engineering, its
importance in delivering sustaina-
ble development, and working with
others to develop strategic frame-
works and best practices for the
implementation of engineering
solutions.
Marlene Kanga, the President of
the World Federation of Engineering
Organisations, who led the proposal
for the day described it as a “won-
derful opportunity” for engineers
to articulate the value of engineer-
ing and the impact engineers have
on society.
Feeding into the day’s activities,
Tom Kavanagh, Chair of IChemE’s
National Young Members Com-
mittee, and a founder member of
the new pan-institutional Young
Engineers Group has launched a
competition for the best ideas and
projects from young engineers
around the world who are progress-
ing the UN Sustainable Development
Goals. Engineers below the age of 35
are invited to submit entries by 14
February for a chance to pitch their
idea at UNESCO headquarters in
Paris on World Engineering Day.
For more information visit:
http://worldengineeringday.net/
young-eng2020
Newsroundup944 DG.indd 16
NEWS round-up
Keele University
be
hydeploy: A blend of hydrogen and natural gas is being
used to heat campus buildings at Keele University
energy
UK’s landmark trial to heat buildings
with hydrogen is fully operational
THE UK’s first project to inject hydrogen into the gas grid is underway at Keele University.
The HyDeploy project announced in early January that its trial to inject hydrogen into
Keele’s private grid is now fully operational. The hydrogen, produced using an electrolyser,
is being injected as a 20% blend with natural gas to demonstrate that it can be used to heat
domestic and university buildings on campus without changing gas-burning appliances or
pipework.
The partners in the £7m (US$9.2m) project, which include Cadent, Northern Gas Networks,
Progressive Energy and the HSE, say if a 20% hydrogen blend was used across the country it
could save around 6m t/y of CO2 – equivalent to taking 2.5m cars off the road. Heating for
homes and industry accounts for half of the UK’s energy consumption and one third of its car-
bon emissions.
Working with the HSE, HyDeploy has carried out safety checks including testing the effect
of hydrogen on materials in appliances and the gas network.
Ed Syson, Chief Safety and Strategy Officer for Cadent, said HyDeploy could prove to be the
launchpad for a wider hydrogen economy.
The project has been granted a ten-month trial by HSE, and following this the consortium
wants to trial supplying a hydrogen blend to more than 650 homes in the northeast of England.
HyDeploy is one of a series of hydrogen-based projects under development in the
UK. Others include the HyNet project which aims to deliver a hydrogen blend to over 2m
consumers across the UK’s North West, and decarbonise local industry. The consortium, which
includes Progressive Energy and SNC Lavalin, aims to demonstrate a high-efficiency low-
carbon hydrogen production process developed by Johnson Matthey. This couples a gas-
heated reformer with an autothermal reformer and will be located at Essar’s Stanlow refinery.
Progressive Energy director David Parkin told The Chemical Engineer in October that the
consortium has completed pre-FEED engineering activities on a 3 TWh/y design that captures
more than 95% of CO2 and has “a well-advanced plant design, including flow schemes, plot
plans, utility connections and costings”.
The consortium is awaiting the result of a government funding application to move the
project to the FEED stage and if successful will have a ‘shovel-ready’ project by mid-2021. In
parallel the consortium is also developing a scaled-up 15 TWh/y scheme.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 16
23/01/2020 16:45
 Drax NEWS round-up
ccs
Drax announces ambition to be world’s first carbon
negative company by 2030
DRAX power station in North Yorkshire, UK, plans to become
carbon negative by 2030 through its use of bioenergy with CCS.
Drax has converted four of its six coal units to use biomass,
and a demonstration carbon capture project is running on one
of the biomass units. The demonstration plant, which is run
in collaboration with C-Capture, has been capturing 1 t/d of
CO2 since February 2019. The CO2 is currently released into
the atmosphere, but plans are to implement full carbon cap-
ture and storage on all units. Drax also plans to close its two
remaining coal units by 2025.
Once the coal units are closed and the BECSS technology
has been scaled up, Drax has said that it will be carbon neg-
ative as it will remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than it
produces. This should be in place by 2030 and could capture
and store at least 16m t/y of CO2.
The burning of biomass for electricity is classed as renew-
able energy under both UK and EU regulations. According to a
report on the use of biomass from the Committee on Climate
Change last year, the use of biomass for electricity generation
should only occur with CCS. The European Academies’ Science
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 17
Newsroundup944 DG.indd 17
Drax: Wood pellet
storage domes
Advisory Council (EASAC) also said in a recent report that
coal-to-biomass projects should not be regarded as renew-
able energy unless a net reduction in emissions is possible
within a decade.
While Drax should meet these criteria, there are
concerns over the fact that burning biomass could exac-
erbate the climate crisis. A report by non-profit think tank
Sandbag has identified 67 planned coal-to-biomass projects
in the EU (this does not include Drax as it is already in oper-
ation). These would require 36m t/y of wood pellets, which
is equal to current global wood pellet production. Burning
this volume would require clearing 2,700 km2 of forest every
year and would produce 67m t/y of CO2. The planned projects
would only produce around 2% of the EU’s electricity needs.
The report makes policy recommendations that govern-
ments should focus on support for renewables that deliver
immediate carbon reductions and that a full assessment of
the biomass life cycle must be undertaken and compared with
a baseline scenario so that the true effect of burning biomass
can be understood.
23/01/2020 16:45
 NEWS Research & Development

waste management
environment
Steam cracking
Novel material for reversible transforms waste
plastic into new
SO2 capture
A PROCESS has been developed for steam
SCIENTISTS have developed cracking of plastic waste to produce new
so2: mainly emitted from industrial
a novel material capable of plastic, which could be integrated into
facilities and power plants
selective and reversible cap- existing petrochemical facilities.
ture of sulfur dioxide (SO2). The molecules needed for plastics are
The porous material could typically made from fossil fuels using a
help to reduce SO2 emissions steam cracker in petrochemical facili-
and enable use of cap- ties. Researchers at Chalmers University of
tured SO2 to produce useful Technology in Sweden have now developed
products. a method for steam cracking waste plas-
SO2 is mainly emitted from tic. The new research presents an outline
industrial facilities and power and cost estimate on how to transform the
plants, and can have det- existing petrochemical sector to use plas-
rimental effects on human tic feedstocks instead of naphtha/alkanes.
health and the environment. The experiments were carried out at the
At the same time, SO2 is an Chalmers Power Central facility in Goth-
important feedstock in the production of sulfuric acid and has other uses, such as in enburg using a dual fluidised bed (DFB) as
preservatives. a cracking unit for the plastic feedstocks.
The scientists developed a metal-organic framework (MOF) containing open They used examples of highly-sorted (pure
copper sites, called MFM-170, to capture SO2 more efficiently than existing systems. polyethylene) and mixed (waste from car
MOFs are a class of crystalline materials consisting of transition-metal cations and recycling) plastic waste. They extrapo-
multidentate organic linkers. Their structure is characterised by an open framework lated the results from the DFB gasifier to
that can be porous. the existing petrochemical infrastructure
Currently, the most common method used for SO2 removal from power plant in Stenungsund, Sweden.
exhaust gas is irreversible reaction with lime or limestone slurries, which can remove “Through finding the right temper-
more than 95% of SO2 but produces high volumes of waste. ature – which is around 850oC – and the
The material created by the team can purify gas streams to <0.1 ppm SO2 right heating rate and residence time, we
(99.99% free of SO2) and shows higher SO2 absorption than any other porous mate- have been able to demonstrate the pro-
rial known to date. The material can fully reversibly uptake 17.5 mmol/g of SO2 at posed method at a scale where we turn
298 K (24.85°C) and 1.0 bar (100 kPa). Once the MFM-170 is saturated, absorbed 200 kg of plastic waste an hour into a use-
SO2 can be released by applying a vacuum to the absorption column. The molecules ful gas mixture,” said Henrik Thunman,
can also be flushed out by a flow of inert gas such as nitrogen. “Importantly, no heat Professor of Energy Technology at Chalm-
is required for regeneration, which reduced energy requirements,” said the study’s ers and lead author of the study detailing
lead author Gemma Smith, from the University of Manchester, UK. the process. “That can then be recycled at
The captured SO2 could be used to produce products such as sulfuric acid, and the the molecular level to become new plastic
reversibility of the system means that the MOF can be reused. materials of virgin quality.”
The new material is “remarkably” stable to exposure to corrosive SO2 and can The new process would close the
efficiently separate it from humid waste gas streams, according to Smith. Porous material cycle if scaled up and applied at
MOFs are not normally stable to water, which causes them to collapse, and SO2 can petrochemical facilities.
also dissolve in water to form an acidic solution which destroys porous materials. In order to match the current production
Smith said that this technology is currently in the early stages of small lab-scale levels of plastic from new petrochemicals,
tests and preliminary proof-of-concept experiments. She added that though it is not the Stenungsund cluster would require
“realistic” to propose complete replacement of current flue gas desulfurisation tech- 1m–1.3m t/y of plastic waste as a feedstock.
nologies, porous materials such as MFM-170 could be used in tandem with existing This would require a global logistic network
technologies for more thorough desulfurisation. to ensure long-term feedstock supply.
Nature Materials http://doi.org/dgg8 Sustainable Materials and Technologies
http://doi.org/dg6b

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 18

R&D944 DG.indd 18 23/01/2020 17:04

 NEWS Research & Development

waste management

Turning banana waste into food packaging

RESEARCHERS at the University of New South Wales,
pseudostems: showing promise
Australia, have developed a process to turn banana plan-
as a source for food packaging
tation waste into a nanocellulose film that could have
applications in food packaging.
Jayashree Arcot, Associate Professor of Chemical
Engineering, and Martina Stenzel, Co-director of the Centre for
Advanced Macromolecular Design at UNSW, wanted to use agri-
cultural waste as a feedstock for other products and decided to
use the banana plant. The fruit only comprises 12% of the plant
and the rest is usually discarded.
They used the pseudostems – the layered, fleshy trunks of
the plants – from plants grown at The Royal Botanic Garden
Sydney to extract cellulose, the structural component in plant
cell walls.
The pseudostem is chopped and then dried at low temper-
atures in a drying oven, before being milled into a very fine
powder. It is then placed in an alkaline solution to extract nano- biodegradable, and non-toxic. There are also no contamination
cellulose which is then made into a film. “Nanocellulose [is] a risks with food.
material of high value with a whole range of applications,” said Arcot explained on the podcast that that process is currently
Stenzel. “One of those applications that interested us greatly only at lab-scale, and that once they scale it up they will need
was packaging, particularly single-use food packaging where so help from industry as universities can only take it so far. “I think
much ends up in landfill.” the packaging companies would be more willing to have a go at
Speaking on a podcast for The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, this material, if they knew the material was available readily,”
Stenzel explained that the fibres of nanocellulose are tiny com- said Arcot.
pared to ordinary cellulose, and have a large surface area, which “What we’re really wanting at this stage is an industry part-
is what makes them attractive for so many applications. ner who can look into how this could be upscaled and how cheap
They tested the new material to show that is recyclable, we can make it,” said Stenzel.

biotech
Partnership will produce pneumococcal vaccines that don’t require cold chain
CPI is partnering with ImmunoBiology (ImmBio) to develop a
vaccine that protects against illnesses such as pneumonia but is
stable when stored at higher temperatures.
Low income countries often do not have the storage and
transport infrastructure needed to keep vaccines refrigerated,
which is vital to keeping the vaccine active. This reliance on
refrigeration is known as the cold chain.
The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae causes diseases such
as meningitis, septicaemia, and pneumonia. There are 50m
cases per year with a fatality rate of 0.7%, with the elderly and
very young being the most vulnerable.
According to the World Health Organization, around 90
distinct pneumococcal serotypes – variations in a species of
bacteria – have been identified. Pneumococcal vaccines are
typically serotype-specific which means they are designed to
cover the serotypes most likely to cause pneumococcal diseases.
UK-based biotechnology company ImmBio has developed a
vaccine candidate called PnuBioVax which can provide broad
protection against pneumococcal diseases. It uses a well charac-
terised mix of proteins and can vaccinate against pneumococcal
diseases regardless of serotype. The vaccine was successfully
demonstrated in a human trial in 2016. It was well tolerated and
produced an increase in the desired antibodies.
The partnership with CPI will allow the development of a
heat-stable formulation of PnuBioVax that will remove the
requirement for the cold chain for this vaccine. CPI will evaluate
the current formulation before producing a formulation that is
stable at 2–8oC and higher.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 19

R&D944 DG.indd 19 23/01/2020 17:04

 feature waste management
from heru to zero: system
seeks to eliminate ‘waste’
Pyrolysis Gets Personal
Adam Duckett visits the workshop of Nik Spencer to
understand more about a pyrolysis unit that allows homes and
businesses to process waste into gas for heating
I
MAGINE a world where instead of having your house-
hold rubbish carted off to landfill or a recycling centre you
simply ‘burned’ it cleanly in a device at home to heat your
own water.
That future might be closer than you think after Nik Spencer
who, after decades of working in the recycling industry, set out
to develop a pyrolysis unit – called a HERU – that is as simple
to use as a wheelie bin and is set for commercial launch later
this year.
Wave goodbye to your waste.
Wave goodbye to the rubbish truck ferrying
your waste to landfill. In fact, why not wave
goodbye to the word ‘waste’ altogether?
Two technical evaluation units have already been used at a
farm shop and a local council cafe close to Nik’s workshop in
the UK’s Worcestershire countryside. And as we go to press, a
third unit is being put through its paces close to IChemE HQ in
Rugby where residents at a local sheltered housing scheme are
using it to process their household waste into heat.
The concept, part funded by the UK Government in 2017, is
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 20
heru DG.indd 20
appealingly simple: a waste-to-energy plant connected to a
boiler, hot water tank and your drain. Open the device’s lid. Put
in your rubbish. This can be anything from spoiled food and
grass cuttings to used nappies and plastic packaging. Close the
lid. Press the ‘on’ button. Walk away.
Wave goodbye to your waste. Wave goodbye to the rubbish
truck ferrying your waste to landfill. In fact, why not wave
goodbye to the word “waste” altogether? Your domestic ‘waste’
is now a valuable resource that you can use to heat your home.
From racehorses to redundant rubbish trucks
For those unfamiliar with pyrolysis, Nik describes it as a natural
process, sped up. In simple terms: bury a dinosaur or a tree in
the earth in a lack of oxygen and wait for millions of years as
the heat from the earth transforms it into hydrocarbons.
“What the HERU does is exactly that same process but
reduces it from 5–9m years to 5 hours of pyrolysis,” Nik says.
Of course, the technology behind this concept is far less
simple. But before we get to that, it’s worth knowing how Nik
came to invent such a device.
He studied animal husbandry and agricultural engineering
and after finishing his studies established a business turning
22/01/2020 15:57
 feature waste management

used newspaper into bedding for racehorses. The advantage inside view: four iNTERNAL thermo-
with paper over the likes of straw is that horses won’t eat it, siphons PRODUCE UNIFORM HEATING
so trainers can better control their diets. The business took off
so fast that Nik needed another to get his hands on more used
newspapers. “By accident I became the first kerbside recycling
company in the UK.”
This outgrew the bedding business and he ended up with
more newspaper than he could process.
“I started trading newspaper to paper mills in the UK and
Europe, and then more latterly to paper mills all over the
world.”
He sold the recycling business and kept the commodity
trading business. From here he invested in 180 recycling trucks
and leased them to local authorities that lacked the funds to
buy their own. Nik went on to set up and sell a number of recy-
cling businesses and facilities before he realised it was “mad”
driving fossil-fuelled lorries to and from homes collecting fuel
for waste-to-energy plants and then sending the energy back
to people’s homes. He asked: “Why don’t we just cut out all of
that carbon producing infrastructure and just have a machine
in the home?”
His journey developing the HERU unit was now underway.

Thinking inside the box

“I knew we couldn’t incinerate, and I’d been looking at pyrol-
ysis for years. I found it really fascinating because it’s such a
natural process and you can rarely argue with nature.”
Nik wanted to engineer a device that would be as simple to
use as a wheelie bin: just open the lid, put in the rubbish, and
walk away.
He was told by a professor who focussed on pyrolysis
research that creating such a simple operation would be impos-
sible because the feedstock would need to be pre-treated to dry
it, shred it and auger it into the machine. Nik admits it was a
disheartening start.
But he was then introduced to Hussam Jouhara, a heat
exchange expert and researcher at Brunel University London,
who put Nik on the trail of thermosyphons. In simple terms
these are sealed pipes used to transfer heat – in this case to the
resource being pyrolysed. They contain a working fluid that is
circulated by convection rather than a pump.
“If we could use those, that would inject all the energy
into the middle of the chamber…so we don’t have to do
pre-treatment.”
Others had tried putting heating elements around the
outside but this combusted the resource unevenly. The device
might gasify material close to the walls of the chamber, but
moving inwards you might get high temperature pyrolysis, low
temperature pyrolysis and then no effect in the centre.
“So, if the nappy falls into the centre of the chamber,
nothing is going to happen to it.”
Nik instead created a device in which the heating elements
– four patented thermosyphons – protrude into the centre of
the chamber.
“It doesn’t matter where you throw that nappy; you’re going
to get this perfectly uniform 300°C. That was the big break-
through for us.”
Three stages of operation
The user puts in the waste - but let’s now call it ‘resource’,
screws down the lid so that it is airtight, and using the touch
screen they turn it on. What follows is a three-stage process:
drying, pyrolysis, combustion.
A 3 kW element heats up the water in the thermosyphon
which is under vacuum so boils at 45°C. This rises to the end
of the thermosyphon pipe and its heat is dissipated into the
chamber; it then condenses and flows back to the heating
element, and on it goes.
Nik explains that municipal waste on average contains
around 35% moisture: food is around 70%; garden trimmings
55%; and cardboard 10%. The HERU heats up the resource,
boiling off its moisture. The resulting steam passes over two

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heru DG.indd 21 22/01/2020 15:57

 feature waste management
demo: a technical evaluation
heru unit, built into a trailer
heat exchangers, condenses. and the water runs down the
drain. The captured heat is used to heat water in a connected
hot water tank.
With the moisture driven off, and the chamber now at around
220°C, pyrolysis gets underway. The dried organic material
begins to decompose in the absence of oxygen as the temper-
ature in the chamber rises to 300°C. It produces a very small
amount of oily vapour that passes over the heat exchangers
and condenses. The oil content (around 5% on average) along
with any chlorine is washed off the face of the heat exchang-
ers with a detergent and flushed down the drain, like how
your dishwasher disposes of the oil cleaned off a dirty frying
pan. Removing the chlorine at this stage avoids dioxins being
produced during the combustion stage.
The syngas coming off the heated material is scrubbed
through a water screen filter, passes through a cyclone to spin
off the moisture, through a 5 µm filter and a compressor, and
then into a 25 L storage tank until its needed by the boiler.
We’re now around five hours in; the gas and oil are dealt
with and all that remains of the resource is char at 300°C. The
machine opens a valve that introduces air to combust the char,
producing a gas rich in carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides.
“The exhaust goes over the heat exchangers and we extract
the energy and put it into the hot water system.”
The exhaust gas then passes through the water screen filter
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 22
heru DG.indd 22
which uses an alkaline solution to scrub out the nitrogen
oxides and remaining oily vapours.
“We turn them into a nitrate and put them into the water.
This water is then later used in the washing process.”
The exhaust gas then passes to the storage tank with any
carbon monoxide in the stream fully combusted when it’s
passed to the boiler. As with any boiler the resulting CO2 is
vented but Nik notes it does not come close to exceeding regu-
latory limits.
Nik says the average mix of resources produces around
2 kWh for every 1 kWh put in, and the company that has
licensed the technology for commercial unit production is
working to further increase the energy efficiency.
Fighting fatbergs
“Then you’re left with ash at the bottom of the chamber.
Now, at one point I thought this is going to be really inelegant
because we’ll have to take the ash out of the machine by hand.”
Nik worked with Brunel University to test the ash and
discovered it contains a gritty substance called lye. This helps
clean the drains – as it did when the Victorians used to flush
ash from their burned waste into the sewers – and because it is
alkaline it helps neutralise the sulfuric acid drained to sewers
by modern boilers, which inhibits the bacteria used in water
treatment plants.
So, the final stage simply involves the HERU pressure-
washing its own innards to flush the ash down the drain.
“The sewage companies love the lye because the HERU takes
the fat element and turns it into energy…Our system will elim-
inate fatbergs and send the sewage company a product that
will scrub the drains.”
“And that’s it. The machine must cool to below 40°C before
you can open it again. Like a washing machine it has to finish
its cycle.”
Then, he says “you refill and off you go again.”
Asked about the safety challenges overcome, Nik points out
the thermosyphon is a pressure vessel so has a rupture disk,
and there is a UV sensor that checks the boiler is on before any
gas is sent its way. He has also tested the machine by adding
materials he’d rather people not put in, such as batteries and
full aerosol cans. The HERU is not damaged, batteries come
out whole, and aerosol cans have their nozzles and contents
pyrolysed and combusted leaving only the metal container for
recycling.
Packaging problems
Nik is bullish about additional benefits, saying the system can
also improve the materials we send for recycling. Add glass and
metal to the HERU and they merely come out clean. Labels and
any traces of food are removed but the temperature does not
get high enough to alter the metal or glass. The user can simply
take it out of the HERU and put it into their recycling bin.
22/01/2020 15:57
 feature waste management

Users could help improve recycling by pyrolysing their waste-

paper too. As fears grow about identity theft, people have taken
to shredding their wastepaper before they put it in the recy-
cling bin. This creates a problem at mixed waste recycling
facilities where glass is broken down and passed over screens
to separate it, but also pulls through shredded strips of paper,
contaminating the stream.
If the HERU were to become widely used, and only glass and
metal were being added to recycling bins, it would make the job
of recyclers much easier.
“You can mix metal and glass together and it can be very
simply separated with a magnet and eddy current.”
It can also help deal with complex packaging such as
laminated pet food sachets and Pringles tubes whose combina-
tion of materials make them a huge recycling challenge.
“The Pringles container has a lot going on. You have the steel
on the bottom, the aluminium foil [lining the tube] the card-
board tube, a laminate on top and then the plastic lid.”
The HERU pyrolyses everything but the metal, which can
then be sent for recycling.
Asked about its drawbacks, Nik says candidly: “the cost”.
“It’s made out of stainless steel 316L, which is expensive.
You need to make it out of that because it needs to deal with the
chlorine element.”
The current system is built inside a trailer so it can be
moved for demonstrations. My first impression is that it looks
no problem with pringles: the heru leaves
rather unrefined, its electrical lines criss-crossing the space
behind just the metals for recycling
in a chaotic fashion. It appears unfinished because it is. Nik
was advised by Baxi, the boiler company he is working with, to
avoid having a printed circuit board made until at least eight return on investment will be around five years.
months has passed without a software modification. “Adult care homes have got incontinence pads and bed pads,
Once fully developed, a domestic unit would be the size of and they are expensive to dispose of so the ROI for those will
a standard dishwasher. Users could have it installed in their be even quicker.”
kitchen, garage, or outside, though Nik cautions that due to the Hotels should also see a faster return because they produce
economics it could be some time before you can nip into your a lot of ‘waste’ and use a lot of energy, Nik explains.
local electrical store and buy one. The initial focus is selling to So, what about industry? Are there plans to scale larger?
businesses. “There are, yes. I’m under a confidentiality agreement but
“The commercial rollout has to be the immediate priority there are discussions to build a 6m tall one that will hold up to
– that isn’t to say we wouldn’t look to do the domestic one for 200 t at a time. I can’t really say too much more about that.”
customers who want them.” Nik says his vision for the HERU project is for every home
A large domestic take-up is likely to hinge on incentives for and business to manage their valuable resources at source.
customers, such as local authorities giving back the portion of “We will follow the first ten commercial early adopter
tax paid to collect household waste. units with 100, then 1,000 and then full production, to ensure
quality; the domestic HERU to follow the same path, beginning
with new-build homes.”
Holding out for a HERU Discussions are taking place for three factories in the US
The three existing demonstration units have a 19 L capacity. and Nik would also like production in Asia.
Nik has licensed the technology to James Clark Technologies “Henry Ford created the Model T Ford due to his horror at
which is now developing a 240 L prototype unit for business seeing horse manure in New York City. We have the same issue
use. Ten of these units will then be manufactured for early today but it is hidden away in CO2 and buried in holes ‘out of
adopters – including a hotel, cinema, hospital and adult care sight, out of mind’, until recently where we are seeing evidence
home – which are expected to be delivered in Q 3 this year. of this pollution in our oceans and horrific fires in Australia.
These units cost approximately £30,000 (US$39,000). The cost Imagine if we could see it in the streets today, what would that
will fall as production increases but for now he expects the look like?”

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 23

heru DG.indd 23 22/01/2020 15:58

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The Chemical Engineer

tce.944.24.indd 2 V2 203x267mm 0919.indd 1 10/10/20192:12
23/01/2020 10:29
PM
 viewpoint carbon emissions

The Carbon Collision Course

Andrew Perry looks at the challenges of tackling global carbon
emissions, and asks when the world will start to take them on seriously

A
N examination of recent editions of The Chemical
Engineer clearly demonstrates one thing: carbon emis-
sions are definitely the topic of the moment. In the
June 2019 edition, 15 of the 48 pages of articles or features
make some reference to the challenges of reducing emissions.
Whether it is renewable energy, carbon capture and storage
(CCS), or transitioning to hydrogen-based intermediate fuel,
the drive to transition to a ‘low carbon’ economy dominates the
debate about the challenges facing chemical engineering.
In the April 2019 edition, News in Numbers reported how the
UK’s emissions fell for the sixth consecutive year in 2018. At
361 mt CO the UK’s emissions were 39% below 1990 levels,
2
which is the Kyoto Protocol baseline year. Given the volume of
coverage in the scientific and technical literature on this topic, a
visitor from another planet could easily be forgiven for thinking
emissions on Earth are completely under control.
However, it turns out nothing could be further from the
truth. As reported in the February 2019 News in Numbers, global
emissions rose by 2.7% in 2018. Man-made emissions from
combined fossil fuel consumption and land use change was
reported as 38.9bn t CO2, a 41% increase over 1990 Kyoto baseline
year emissions.
Even in today’s popular press, hardly a day goes by without
some coverage of climate-related issues. Whether it is extreme
weather events, sea-level change, risk to the Great Barrier
Reef, and most recently, Australia’s bushfire crisis, mitigating
greenhouse gas emissions is claimed to be the greatest tech-
nical challenge we face this century. But despite reductions in
some jurisdictions, emissions have risen consistently over the
past 100 years by a compound interest rate of around 2.5%.1
Achieving real emission reductions has been likened to squeez-
ing a balloon: squeeze it at one end and it just bulges out at the
other. For example, efficiency improvements in cars and aircraft
made over recent years haven’t resulted in emission reductions.
It has made cheap travel available to more and more of the
world’s growing population. And renewable energy hasn’t had
any measurable impact on emissions growth. So far, renewable
energy has not globally displaced fossil fuel energy, it has come

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 25

emissionsperry AP DG.indd 25 23/01/2020 15:24

 viewpoint carbon emissions

figure 1: Global Emissions, population and atmospheric CO2 Table 1: UK and Australia Emissions2
concentration since 1750
Million tons (m t) CO2e*
10 450 Emission sector
9 400
UK Australia
8 350 Fossil fuels – direct CO2 emissions 373 383
7
300
Fossil fuel fugitive emissions (methane) 7 59

PPM CO2
6
250
BILLIONS

5 Industrial processes 24 35
200
4
150 Agriculture 46 70
3
100
2 Waste processing 20 12
1 50
Land use change and forestry -10 -20
0 0
1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050 2100
TOTAL 460 539

FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS – CARBON EQV, bn t/y Population (million) 66.0 25.2
POPULATION
Emissions – t per capita 7.0 21.4
ATMOSPHERIC CO2 (RIGHT SIDE AXIS)
*Latest officially available statistics: UK 2017, Aus 2018

on stream incremental to it.1
Figure 1 shows the estimated growth of anthropogenic carbon
emissions and global population over the past 250 years of the
Industrial Revolution. The chart also shows the increasing trend
in atmospheric CO2 concentration on the right-hand axis.
It’s easy to see a correlation between population and carbon
emissions. But this doesn’t prove there’s a cause-and-effect
relationship. Many in the debate purport that emissions are
solely a problem associated with unconstrained population
growth. Given that the global population only started to rise
exponentially around the start of the Industrial Revolution, it
is more likely to be the other way round: access to cheap fossil
fuel energy has been a causal factor in this dramatic popula-
tion growth. Almost all of the recent world population growth
has occurred in developing economies – countries with very
low fossil fuel consumption and emissions. While most of the
cumulative carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution
have occurred in the West (referring here to the US and Canada,
the EU including the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Japan),
methane emissions associated with extraction and processing)
accounts for more than 80% of reported emissions. So tackling
fossil fuel consumption-based emissions is really the crux of
the issue.
Every day the world consumes about 12m t of oil (around 85m
bbl), 21m t of coal, and 7.5m t of natural gas, resulting in about 93m
t of direct carbon dioxide emissions. That’s about 12 kg CO2 per day
for every person on the planet (7.5bn). That might not sound like
much, but it’s about 12 times the amount of CO2 we exhale every
day by the natural respiration of carbohydrate energy in food. But
that’s just the world’s average. In the West, fossil fuel consump-
tion emits 28 kg per day – 28 times the natural respiration rate.
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are around 540m t/y CO2e.
That is about 21.4 t CO2e per capita (60 kg/d), which is the highest
figure 2: Steel Production – US, UK, Australia 1990–20162, 5
120

the sheer size of the non-West’s population (6.5bn) means it

now accounts for around 70% of the world’s emissions. If the 100
STEEL PRODUCTION, m t

non-West’s CO2e emissions (which are currently only 4.8 t CO2e

80
per capita) increase by only 2 t per capita, it will negate the West
eliminating all of its current CO2e emissions. 60

40

UK, Australian and Global Emissions 20

There are six categories of greenhouse gases that are emitted
through human industrial activity – so-called anthropogenic 0
1990 2016
emissions. Although methane emissions from the beef industry
gets plenty of media attention, agricultural emissions in total UNITED STATES

account for only 13% of national emissions for Australia and AUSTRALIA

even less for the UK (see Table 1). UK

In both countries, fossil fuel consumption (including fugitive

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 26

emissionsperry AP DG.indd 26 23/01/2020 15:25

 viewpoint carbon emissions
emission footprint of all Western industrialised nations. This
compares to only around 7 t per capita in the UK. So what drives
Australian per capita emissions to be so much higher that the
UK? It turns out that Australia simply consumes more fossil fuels
and electricity per capita – approximately double the volumes
of petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, natural gas and electricity 2.
Australian fossil fuel per capita emissions have stayed relatively
constant at about 17 t over the Kyoto Protocol period. The UK’s
emissions have reduced from about 12 t in 1990, to around 6 t
in 2017. The UK has achieved this reduction through a number
of measures, including a high uptake of renewable energy, but
the primary driver of the UK emission reductions has been the
phasing out of coal-fired power generation. However, reduc-
tions from other heavy industrial activity has also played a role.
It is estimated that the global steel industry contributes around
7–8% of greenhouse gas emissions. Steel production results in
emissions of around 2–3 t of CO2e per ton of steel. Figure 2 shows
steel production in the UK, US and Australia between 1990 and
2016. The three countries have reduced steel production by 20%.
But by far the largest percentage decrease has occurred in the
UK, where steel production has declined by 57%.
Figure 3 shows global steel production over the same period.
On this global scale, the reductions in the US, UK and Australia
can hardly been seen. All the net increase in global steel produc-
tion since 1990 (around 800m t) has been met by production
growth in China and India – both countries exempt from Kyoto
Protocol round one emission reduction targets (set in the 1990s).
And it’s a similar story for the other high emission intense metal,
aluminium. China and India combined now produce 59% of the
world’s primary aluminium. 5
The reduction in emissions from heavy industrial activity in
the UK has had no impact on global emissions. The emissions
have simply been outsourced. In fact, when the net carbon foot-
print of the balance of imported and exported goods is taken
figure 3: Steel Production – World 1990–20162, 5
1,800
1,600
1,400
STEEL PRODUCTION, m t
1,200
1,000
800
600
400
200
0 0.0
1990 2016
CHINA UNITED STATES
INDIA AUSTRALIA
REST OF WORLD UK
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 27
emissionsperry AP DG.indd 27
into account, it is estimated that the UK’s emissions increased
by around 20% over the period 1990–2009.4 Figure 4 shows the
growth in global fossil fuel emissions over the Kyoto Protocol
period from 1990–2104.
It looks like the UN’s policy of only restricting emissions
from the West (so called Annex-1 nations) has completely failed
to curb the rise in global emissions. Any minor gains that have
been achieved have been more than negated by industrial growth
in non-Western and developing economies. Much of this growth
has been underpinned by Australian natural resources exports
of about 1.3bn t/y (iron ore, coal, gas and bauxite), worth about
A$160bn/y (US$110bn/y) to the Australian economy.
The Remaining Carbon Emissions Budget
Figure 1 showed billions of tons of CO2e emissions per year (as
carbon equivalent – equal to CO2e x 12/44). The area under the
curve is equal to the total cumulative amount of carbon emitted.
The result is about 2trn t of CO2e. The various UN climate studies
estimate that to stay within a temperature increase of less than
1.5°C, we can emit around another trillion tons (+/- 50%)1, about
half of what we have emitted so far. If we gradually cut our
current ~44bn t of CO2e emissions to zero from today, we’ll use
up our remaining emission budget in about another 50 years.
Figure 5 shows the emission cut we would need to achieve.
The problem is that there are more fossil fuel reserves than the
remaining carbon budget allows. We have enough proven and
probable fossil fuel reserves to emit an estimated 3trn t into the
atmosphere – three times the allowable budget.1 But if possible
reserves and non-conventional resources are included, that
figure increases to about ten times the allowable budget. So the
key question is: which private or state-owned energy companies
will be restricted to leaving their economically-recoverable fossil
fuel reserves in the ground? When will we start? And who will
figure 4: Global Fossil Fuel Emissions 1990–2014 (Adapted from 3)
12.0
10.0
8.0
CARBON, bn t
6.0
4.0
2.0
1990 2016
CHINA REST OF WORLD
INDIA THE WEST
23/01/2020 15:25
 viewpoint carbon emissions
figure 5: The remaining Carbon Emission Budget
10
9 400
8 350
7
6
BILLIONS
4
3
2
1 50
0
1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
FOSSIL FUEL EMISSIONS – CARBON EQV, bn t/y
POPULATION
EMISSION REDUCTION REQUIRED (1.5ºC TARGET)
ATMOSPHERIC CO2 (RIGHT SIDE AXIS)
pay the cost of writing off the reserves? For Australia, this would
be a write-off of trillions of dollars’ worth of coal reserves and
export revenue. Even the UK, which has the most ambitious direct
emission reduction targets in the world, has a policy of maximis-
ing recovery of its remaining oil fossil fuel reserves. To the visitor
from another planet, it might seem that we suffer from a severe
case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
Conclusions
Given there is so much concern about emissions, why haven’t
we so far been able to do anything about it? As shown, the UN’s
policies have completely failed to curb the rise in global emissions.
And the EU’s policies of capping and trading emissions have simply
driven heavy industrial emissions to be outsourced to developing
economies. Well, as with most things in life it boils down to costs.
Renewable energy is espoused as the solution to fossil fuel emis-
sions, and certain sectors in the energy debate claim it is already
cheaper than fossil fuel. If this is the case, emission reductions
should be easy, and further uptake of renewable energy would be
booming without government subsidy.
However, to quote from a recent article in The Chemical Engineer:
“Finally, with regards to cost, it would be intellectually dishon-
est to set expectations that decarbonisation of the economy will
not come at a cost compared to the status quo. Therefore, decar-
bonisation is fundamentally a moral decision, not an economic
inevitability”. (Tommy Isaac, Issue 933, Mar 2019: Hydrogen Economy).
If decarbonisation of the global economy is going to increase
costs, who is going to pay? Of course, it can only be governments,
or in other words, taxpayers.
In my view, the fairest and most transparent way to
incentivise decarbonising any economy is through an across-the-
board carbon tax. As has been the case in some jurisdictions, there
should be no exception for luxury items such as international
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 28
emissionsperry AP DG.indd 28
air travel and tourism. But a carbon tax cannot just be applied
to country-produced direct CO2e emissions. To avoid the effect of
450 high emission industries being outsourced to developing econo-
mies, it must be applied to the carbon footprint of imported goods,
known as a ‘consumption-based tax’. Consumption-based carbon
300 taxation is a way for individual countries to commit to achieving
PPM CO2
250 global emission reduction objectives, without having to consider
200 the action – or inaction – of other countries.
150
The problem with a consumption-based carbon tax is it is very
100
difficult to accurately determine the carbon footprint of specific
wholesale imported goods. While the carbon emissions for whole
2100
0
economies can be estimated with reasonable accuracy, allocat-
ing them to specific units of production would require immensely
complicated allocation rules and material traceability require-
ments. The possibility that such a scheme could be worked into our
global trade framework seems pretty unlikely.
Tackling carbon emissions requires a global long-term plan,
for which outcomes will only be measurable over a 50–100-
year horizon. Tax payers in democracies will have to vote for
more expensive energy and consumer goods over multiple short
political terms. This is for benefits to the environment they
probably will not live to see, and could well be negated by other
countries failing to take similar action on emissions. There is little
wonder that carbon emissions have presented a challenge, which
so far our global scientific, engineering and political communities
have been unable to address.
Everybody seems to have an opinion on what should be done
about emissions. However, I wonder if many of us appreciate
how dependent on fossil fuel energy for our everyday consumer
goods we have become, and what radical changes to our consump-
tion habits are required if we are to seriously alter our current
emissions trajectory.
Andrew Perry CEng MIChemE is a Chartered consulting chemical
engineer with extensive experience in the petroleum and energy
industries in the UK and Australia. He recently published “The Carbon
Collision Course: Australia’s Emissions and Energy Policy Crisis”.
References
1. Burners-Lee, M and Clark, D, The Burning Question, Profile
Books, 2013.
2. Perry, A, The Carbon Collision Course: Australia’s Emissions
and Energy Policy Crisis, Australia, Pursuit Energy and Project
Consulting, 2019 (contains a full list of references for this
article).
3. Olivier JGJ, Janssens-Maenhout G, Muntean M and Peters
JAHW (2014), Trends in global CO2 emissions; 2014 Report, The
Hague: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency;
Ispra: European Commission, Joint Research Centre.
4. https://bit.ly/2ZYVBC1
5. Brown, TJ et al, 2018, World Mineral Production: 2012–2016.
British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham.
23/01/2020 15:25
 Mosa Meat feature food

mosa meat: the world’s first

cultured hamburger (2013)

Novel Meat for a New Age

Protein sources are gaining increasing attention due to concerns
about the sustainability of traditionally-sourced meat.
Amanda Jasi looks at the novel emerging alternatives

A
S the global population continues to rise – the UN expects
it to reach 9.8bn by 2050 – the global food system faces
the challenge of meeting increasing demand. At the
same time, to achieve environmental and climate change goals,
food to meet this demand will have to be produced sustainably.
Meat – an important source of protein and other nutrients in
the human diet – is a major driver of environmental change, and
increasing production and consumption has led to environmen-
tal and resource use concerns.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Meat: The Future
series – Alternative Proteins (https://bit.ly/2NsMkgA), supplying
a population of 10bn with the amount of meat typical in North
American and European diets would require too much land and
water, and result in “unacceptable” emissions of GHGs and
pollutants.
Additionally, the intensive farming employed to fulfil demand
has led to the adoption of practices opposed by animal welfare
groups and activists, such as the RSPCA and Direct Action
Everywhere.
Alternative meat and protein options could improve sustain-
ability and the ethics of meat production.
Plant pretenders
A ‘meat’ alternative already on the market is plant-based
meat. Using a biomimicry approach, companies aim to match
the organoleptic properties of meat, such as flavour, aroma,
texture, and appearance, using plant protein sources.
According to MJ Kinney, Food Scientist at the Good Food
Institute (GFI), plant-based meat is produced using extrusion

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 29

food DG.indd 29 22/01/2020 11:28

 feature food

Impossible
– “a versatile, multi-industry technology that ultimately
transforms native ingredient biopolymers into a continuous
semi-solid”. GFI is a US-based non-profit organisation which
promotes clean meat (also known as “cultured meat”) and
plant-based alternatives to animal products.
“In food applications, extrusion can impart a texture
similar to meat and produce at commercially-feasible rates,”
Kinney says. “Plant-based meat manufacturers are leaning
on the capabilities of twin-screw extrusion to accomplish the
organoleptic demands of plant-based meat. It employs two
intermeshing screws within the extruder barrel and thereby
impossible?
increases the mechanical energy potential compared to single- Compared to conventional ground beef,
screw extrusion equipment.” Impossible’s product uses:
Extrusion is used to produce the main ingredient used in
plant-based meat production, textured vegetable protein (TVP)
and the inputs into this product may include “flours, protein
concentrates or isolates, and/or in combination with starches
and fibres”. According to Kinney, “these dry ingredients are
87% 96% 100%
less less less
often derived from legumes and pulses like soy and field peas
and are combined with water and sometimes lipids as they
undergo extrusion”. water land cows
She continues: “Extrusion can also be both low-moisture
and results in:
and high moisture. In the case of low-moisture extrusion, the
TVP comes in the form of a dried crumble which only starts
to mimic meat once hydrated. Following hydration, TVP is 89% fewer 92% less
combined with further ingredients such as fats, flavouring greenhouse aquatic
gas emissions pollutants
agents, and binders before being shaped and formed into a
product such as a patty, sausage, or meatball.”
According to Kinney, restructured meat products have
gained more attention in this area than whole-muscle meat
products, such as chicken breasts or steak. explains that the industry may be considered lacking in effi-
ciency. In the traditional meat industry, “all parts of the animal
are used”, and this is because the industry has had the time to
In the traditional meat industry, “all parts develop in order to achieve optimum efficiency. This is yet to be
of the animal are used” because the industry achieved with some of the emerging plant-based meat inputs,
has had the time to develop in order to achieve though Kinney does point to soy, a “gold standard” of protein,
optimum efficiency. This is yet to be achieved which has had enough time to develop to the point that all parts
with some of the emerging plant-based meat of it, such as the starch content, are used.
Additionally, the sector continues to face technical chal-
Because the plant-based meat production process does not lenges. According to Kinney, scaleup is a challenge, due to
rely on animals, which act as a middleman between crops and the lack of plant-based meat manufacturers in the space at
meat, a sustainability story is created in which less resources this time. Brands entering the market need to form good and
are used, explains Kinney. intentional relationships with manufacturers that have the
For example, according to a life cycle assessment of Impos- capability and interest to build the necessary infrastructure.
sible Foods’ Impossible Burger (https://bit.ly/2svjQvs), its If those manufacturers can’t be found, the brands must invest
product uses 2.5 m2/y of land and 106.8 L of water, and results in in developing the manufacturing facilities. This results in high
1.3 g PO4-equivalent of aquatic eutrophication potential and final product cost and long lead times.
3.5 kg of CO2 equivalent. (Eutrophication is when a body of water According to Kinney, chemical engineers could contribute to
becomes overly enriched with nutrients and minerals result- the development of processes that help optimise the fraction-
ing in an excessive algae growth rate.) According to the results, ation and functional components of plant protein. Plant-based
compared to conventional ground beef, Impossible’s product meat production employs fractionation to remove starch and
uses 96% less land, 87% less water, and results in 92% less increase the protein composition. Additionally, they could
aquatic pollutants and 89% fewer greenhouse gas emissions. develop processes to add value to byproducts, such as the
However, despite the environmental benefits, Kinney starch from peas.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 30

food DG.indd 30 22/01/2020 11:28

 feature food
Eating insects
Whilst eating insects isn’t an entirely new concept and occurs
in many parts of the world, Western attitudes about eating
insects remain negative. “You can’t get away from that yuck
factor,” says Christopher Bear, Director at the Woven Network,
the UK’s network for insects as food and feed.
Nevertheless, insect meat and protein are attracting interest.
According to Bear this is mainly driven by the sustainability
benefits.
According to Oonincx and de Boer (http://doi.org/kgn),
every kilogramme of edible protein from mealworms results
in 14 kg of CO2-equivalent and requires 173 MJ of energy use
and 18 m2 of land use. In comparison with a kilogramme of
edible mealworm protein, beef – the worst performing of the
meats used for comparison – has 5.52–12.51 times more global
warming potential (GWP) and requires 1.02–1.58 times the
energy and 7.89–14.12 times the land.
Furthermore, Bear points to the UN Food and Agriculture
Organisation’s Edible insects: Future prospects for food and feed
security (https://bit.ly/2QWj8AG), which states that although
water use estimates are unavailable for mealworm production,
requirements could potentially be considerably lower.
According to Bear, the UK insect market is quite small at
the moment but insects – mainly crickets, mealworms, and
buffalo worms – are available in a range of ways, for human
consumption. He adds: “For example, in Sainsbury’s you can
buy crickets, and they’re being sold as snacks.” Additionally, he
mentions the use of insect powders as an ingredient in protein
bars, and insects being included as menu items at restaurants,
such as at Grub Kitchen in Wales, the UK’s first insect-based
restaurant.
Adam Banks, also a Director at the Woven Network, says
that although the majority of insects for human consumption
yuk or yum?: insect protein
is attracting interest
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 31
food DG.indd 31
are obtained through wild harvesting, farming does occur.
According to him, Thailand – which has a history of cricket
farming going back to the 1990s – is probably where farming
is most established.
There, the farms are covered, but not all housed. “They
might just be under sheeting or netted off,” says Banks.
However, he adds that some of the new facilities are indoors.
Most of the crickets are raised in concrete pens, ranging
from 2–3 m wide by 5–10 m long and containing surface area
maximisers – typically moulded fibre egg trays. These give the
crickets surface to cling to. After about 40 days the crickets
are ready to harvest. They are harvested by hand, and culled
by freezing. Often, they are washed and blanched before deep
freezing for longer periods, says Banks.
According to Banks, existing farms produce from about
50 kg per month of product (small farms) up to 3.5 t per
month, as claimed by cricket powder producer Cricket Lab. The
company, which claims to operate the world’s biggest cricket
facility, supplies its protein ingredient to the food industry.
One of the most important factors in raising crickets is
temperature, says Banks. He says many cricket farms consider
32–33°C optimal, but it’s safer to operate at about 30–31°C
as this reduces the likelihood of the temperature tipping
beyond 34°C which would result in heat stress. Additionally,
it is cheaper. He believes cricket farming really took off in the
north eastern part of Thailand, because the climate is “pretty
much the perfect climate for rearing crickets”.
According to Bear, in places like Europe, where the ambient
temperatures aren’t as suitable, heating and energy costs are a
potential issue that must be faced.
In the UK most insects sold as food are currently
imported from countries where the sector is
further on and taking place at a larger scale
Some larger companies such as Cricket Labs claim to have
automated production processes, says Banks. Bear adds that
in countries such as France and Belgium, where the sector is
further along than in the UK, automation and finding ways of
“cleaning, separating out the different ages of insects, giving
them water, and freshening their water” have started to be
addressed.
However, in the UK, farming remains labour intensive,
creating an obstacle for scaleup and increasing costs. In
addition to his role at the Woven Network, Banks is Opera-
tions Manager at cricket production company Instar Farming.
He says his company’s production costs are 4 or 5 times higher
per kilogramme as compared to broiler chicken production,
because of the lack of automation.
In the UK most insects sold as food are currently imported
from countries where the sector is further on and taking place
at a larger scale, says Bear. According to Banks, automation
along the production line, from hatching to vacuum packing
22/01/2020 11:28
 feature food
the powder, is an area to which engineers could contribute to
aid development of the insect meat sector.
Lab grown
“Cultured meat, in its basic form, is muscle cells that have
been grown in a bioreactor,” says Marianne Ellis, Head of the
Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Bath,
UK. The university says that it is leading the UK’s efforts to
develop lab-grown meat.
Because the meat is grown in a reactor rather than within
an animal, cultured meat could contribute to improved animal
welfare in farming. Cells could be sourced from small-scale
farming operations which could be more sustainable and use
environmentally-friendly and animal-friendly farming prac-
tices, says Ellis. She adds that though cells are currently sourced
from biopsies from live animals or recently-culled animals,
some people are working to develop cell lines that would elim-
inate the need for direct animal biopsies.
Additionally, although cultured meat is yet to be produced
at scale, research has projected that cultured meat could offer
environmental benefits. Tuomisto and Teixeira de Mattos
(http://doi.org/fgv7m7) found that 1,000 kg of cultured meat
production requires 26–33 GJ energy, 367–521 m3 water,
190–230 m2 of land, and would emit 1,900–2,240 kg of
CO2-equivalent. Depending on the conventional (European)
meat used for comparison, cultured meat was found to require
7–45% less energy (excluding poultry which used less energy),
99% less land, and 82–96% less water, and to produce 78–96%
less GHG emissions.
However, not all studies predict such positive findings.
Mattick et al, (http://doi.org/f77h6q) predicted energy use, GWP,
and land use several times larger than values from previous
studies, though land use was still projected below requirements
for all the livestock types considered (beef, pork, and poultry).
According to Ellis, in addition to the muscle cells, cell
culture media containing all the nutrients the cells require –
such as amino acids, sugars, salts, and proteins – and a scaffold
are required. A scaffold is a biomaterial structure that the cells
grow on. Heat may also be needed at earlier stages.
Whilst currently, it is muscle cells alone that are being
cultured, in theory other structures and cell types such as blood
vessels, nerves, and fat cells, would be included to help “fully
replicate muscle-sourced meat as we know it”. This would allow
people to have, for example, a cultured steak. However, “that’s
a really, really long way off”, says Ellis. Currently cultured
meat is produced and formed into products such as sausages,
burgers, and nuggets.
Regardless, Ellis says that cultured meat tastes like meat
and elaborates on the importance of this. “When we’re looking
at either food security in terms of producing enough protein,
or we’re looking at people choosing alternative protein sources
to reduce environmental burden from eating livestock, then
actually it’s the current meat-eaters who need an alternative.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 32
food DG.indd 32
Not those who have already made the decision to be vegan or
vegetarian. So, the fact that it tastes like meat…that’s a real
benefit for it.”
According to Ellis there are more than 30 companies around
the world working to develop cultured meat, such as Mosa
Meat, Memphis Meat, and Alesph Farms. She says “we don’t
actually know what stage they’re at” but some companies have
had tasting events and made products on a small scale to show
what they can produce. Companies are keeping quiet about
the amounts they can produce but Ellis says, “it could be done
now quite comfortably on a 10 g scale”, but production is very
expensive.
“The biggest technical challenge is producing cultured meat
at scale, affordably,” says Ellis. The meat can be made but it
is currently expensive to do so because production uses tissue
engineering techniques and high-value ingredients developed
for medical applications.”
chemical engineers have to be involved in the
development of cultured meat “from day one”,
as they will help to facilitate later scaleup
Furthermore, there is the scaleup itself, needed to produce
muscle cells on a scale beyond anything that would be needed
for medical applications.
“Chemical engineers are going to be central to the success
of cultured meat because ultimately we need to manufacture
it,” says Ellis. She adds that chemical engineers have to be
involved in the development of cultured meat “from day one”,
as they will help to facilitate later scaleup. For example, they
could work with biologists to help develop cell lines or select
cell types that grow well in bioreactor environments or look
at mass balance and stoichiometry to understand how cells
behave and metabolise nutrients in the reactor.
Additionally, they can contribute to aspects of development
such as reactor design, and downstream process development
such as product isolation, and potentially waste treatment and
valorisation. “There’s so much for chemical engineers to be
doing,” says Ellis.
The future of meat
Bear posits a potential future in which consumers choose from
a range of alternatives in a similar way to eggs, or chicken. “If
you go to buy eggs or chicken, you can choose between free
range, organic, something with the red tractor, something
with the RSPCA accreditation”. Red Tractor Assurance signi-
fies high quality standards across the whole length of the food
chain and RSPCA Assured is the RSPCA’s ethical food label
dedicated to farm animal welfare.
To whatever extent they may be adopted by the meat sector,
alternatives have the potential to help avoid “unacceptable”
consequences and enable a more sustainable future.
22/01/2020 11:28
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 feature plant asset management & maintenance

On the Road to Digital

Chemicals businesses must not delay on digitalisation if they want to
transform their operations, says Paige Marie Morse

T
HE chemicals sector is continuing to perform
strongly across all regions and we expect that trend
to continue for the foreseeable future. Consultancy
Roland Berger’s study Chemical Winners 2018 – Focus on Profits
(https://bit.ly/36ndHjp) examines the financial performance
of 170 chemical companies in the US and Europe and provides
an industry overview. It found that 2018 was another strong
year for the sector.
According to the study, the total sales of the 170 chemical
companies surveyed rose by 9% in 2018 compared with 2017 –
and the profitability of the chemical industry as a whole was
also strong last year. Although the EBIT margin of 12% was
lower than the 13% in 2017, the overall EBIT dollar improved as
the chemical industry saw industry-wide sales growth of 4%.
In our experience at AspenTech, speciality chemicals
have been performing particularly well in recent times. Bulk
chemicals markets are doing well too, especially in Asia
where demand is strong and there is a clear drive towards
self-sufficiency, and in the US, where there is a feedstock
advantage. Indeed, access to cheap feedstocks continues to
provide North American chemicals manufacturers with a
significant cost advantage. We have already seen a huge wave
of new capacity and we expect a second wave to emerge in the
2021-2024 timeframe.
Even Europe, which has struggled to compete on cost in
recent years, has seen major announcements of new activity,
heralding a recovery here also. Two trends impacting
European operators are: first, operators in Europe import-
ing cheap feedstock from operators in the US and second,
the ongoing push from European operators to move down-
stream to get more involved in the specialty chemicals sector.
The advantage here is that this is a complex technically-
demanding business that suits the performance capabilities
in Europe. Operators know that if they perform well in this
space, there will be more margin and more profitability on
offer – and that continues to encourage broad participation.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 34

aspentech DG.indd 34 22/01/2020 10:24

 feature plant asset management & maintenance
Scoping the Challenge
Of course, despite the optimistic picture overall, the chemi-
cals sector is still facing significant challenges. There are trade
tensions between the US and China and, to a lesser degree,
between the US and the EU. Chemical operators will need to
carefully monitor these tensions because any uncertainty in
trade flows is likely to act as a brake on decision-making.
The other major challenge relates to the speed of digital
transformation across these market sectors. While process-
ing industries are finally catching up to service industries in
their digitalisation efforts, chemicals continues to trail when
compared to others in its class. In comparison with many other
heavy industries, chemicals operators are lagging behind in
implementing digital solutions. Certainly, refining has moved
faster than chemicals, with the majority of operators using
advanced process control (APC) solutions and many moving
towards artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
While processing industries are finally
catching up to service industries in their
digitalisation efforts, chemicals continues
to trail when compared to others in its class
In contrast, while a growing number of chemicals companies
are exploring the benefits and running trials, far fewer have
launched live commercial implementations. They are there-
fore potentially missing out on the benefits of deploying APC
solutions that enable units to run at faster rates and deliver
consistent on-spec products. Many are yet to trial analytics
tools that could help them apply lessons from previous opera-
tions to improve future outcomes.
Operators will need to take action soon to address this
and kickstart their digital efforts. Otherwise, they will miss
out on the opportunities that moving to digital could bring –
from the chance to drive up productivity and profit through
enhanced throughput and yield, to better coordinated supply
chains, to the opportunity to better plan maintenance and
reduce the occurrence of unplanned outages.
It is all about the pursuit of operational excellence. APC
still plays a key role in helping companies to maintain optimal
operating conditions, while using prescriptive analytics to
pinpoint when a piece of equipment will fail allows operators
to plan ahead, develop contingency plans and avoid unnec-
essary costs. Given these potential benefits, why aren’t more
chemical operators capitalising on the benefits of digitalisa-
tion? What’s holding most operators back is the thorny issue
of operational complexity. Operators often struggle to know
where to begin. Many operations, particularly in specialties,
have become increasingly complex as customers demand
higher levels of performance and quality and a greater range
of options from producers. And operators realise they need
to diversify product lines to meet these increasingly sophis-
ticated needs.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 35
aspentech DG.indd 35
Drivers of digitalisation
There are a range of drivers of digitalisation at play across
the chemicals sector. Aligning with customer demands is
especially crucial in the speciality chemicals area. Models
of manufacturing assets can be used to automate identifica-
tion and evaluation of production scenarios across a variety of
timeframes. These models represent the full complexity and
options possible, including production rates, constraints, setup
times, sequencing and site logistics. Specialty companies cite
an 8-12% increase in on-time order fulfillment when these
tools are applied.
Meeting customer needs includes ensuring that assets
operate well and produce the targeted products. Leading compa-
nies use multivariate tools to analyse interrelated operational
data to identify and eliminate sources of process variabil-
ity. Businesses apply this analysis to batch and continuous
processes to make sure more production meets specification.
Innovation can enable businesses to meet customer demands
while driving competitive position. Specialty chemicals manu-
facturers are continuously looking to innovate and enhance
product performance at lower cost. Digital technologies can
boost productivity and reduce errors by easing the transition
from laboratory to plant production processes. And simula-
tion solutions shorten development cycles for new products by
screening process options before lab and pilot work begins.
In the speciality sector, in particular, manual procedures,
hand-written reports and paper-based systems are still
common for critical activities like recipe execution and raw
material management. These isolated tools limit visibility into
data and frequently delay responses to potential quality issues
and regulatory requirements. Through digitalisation, organi-
sations can achieve visibility of key data that, in turn, allows
them to gain the necessary insight to deliver improvements in
consistency and quality.
When assessing the value chain for specialty chemicals
producers, technology solutions enable monitoring, execution
and control of the manufacturing process. In addition, planning
and scheduling tools help boost responsiveness and related
profitability. Rapidly-changing market and customer demands
force frequent changes in production schedules. Adjustments
as high as 25-45% each month are not uncommon.
Improved scheduling tools add value to business
decision-making as variations occur, by incorporating
constraints – like storage limitations and variable lead times
– while minimising excess inventory and off-spec produc-
tion. Digital solutions also enable better collaboration among
colleagues, to ensure that changes are less disruptive to oper-
ations. Better scheduling capability can also boost asset
utilisation. At the same time, schedulers can see the impact of
their decisions and make adjustments to avoid problems along
the supply chain before they happen.
Moreover, production optimisation, which links manu-
facturing systems to scheduling, helps to align business and
operations processes to ensure that the plant runs to full
22/01/2020 10:24
 feature plant asset management & maintenance
constraint limits and the business can capture maximum margins.
Many chemical companies now have complex international
supply chains that must integrate regional demands with variable
economics and constraints. Digital technologies let planners run
multiple scenarios to select the best option, comparing key finan-
cial metrics and operational key performance indicators (KPIs)
across several production units.
Another key enabler to align business with operations is visual-
isation tools that display critical performance metrics aggregated
from multiple systems to a single data access layer. This tech-
nology eases the reporting process and facilitates sharing across
the organisation, creating more integrated workflows and coor-
dinating decision-making across business functions. Enterprise
dashboards are easily created from process and business sources,
retaining the confidential details locally while benefiting from
a low maintenance, scalable SaaS hybrid cloud approach. This
performance is best represented by the concept of a digital thread
that weaves throughout the enterprise to enable a step-change in
productivity and, correspondingly, profitability.
Putting a Procedure in Place
Chemicals production, whether bulk or speciality, involves thou-
sands of different processes that are used to make tens of thousands
of products on a wide range of asset types, and often across
multiple geographic regions. In this environment, it is wrong to
imply that quick and simple solutions are readily available.
Digitalisation efforts can take considerable amounts of time
but the experiences our customers report overwhelmingly prove
the value of the effort. Increasingly today, digitalisation is not just
an option for chemical operators, it is a strategic imperative.
So what works in practice? How can chemical operators move
beyond a theoretical appreciation of the benefits of digitalisa-
tion and instead begin implementing business solutions on the
ground to drive enhanced profitability and competitive edge? Here
we outline some key steps: from enterprise-wide planning to the
development of internal specialists to ensure digital transforma-
tion efforts are a complete success.
• Prepare your organisation: Many companies struggle to
find the resources to execute digital projects, and efforts
often get held up by competing priorities. BASF sees the
importance of fast action for Industrie 4.0 projects, and has
created a separate organisation, isolated from IT, to push
the implementation. At INVISTA, the concept of “citizen
data scientists” is used to encourage employees to get
involved in analytics projects that identify preventative and
prescriptive actions to resolve production issues.
• Develop internal specialists: ExxonMobil uses a team
of internal experts to implement APC technologies at its
olefins/polymer complexes across the world. The experts
travel to each site to implement and troubleshoot and,
using the latest adaptive process control capabilities,
have been able to reduce implementation periods from six
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 36
aspentech DG.indd 36
months or more to just six weeks. Braskem has identified
internal change agents that use entrepreneurial thinking
to encourage adoption of new digital tools throughout its
businesses.
• Incorporate digitalisation in your sustainability plan:
Digital solutions have always targeted improved efficiency
and reduced use of resources, which are common goals
in sustainability programmes. Businesses are moving
from purely financial metrics to alternatives like carbon
dioxide emissions and total resource efficiency to target
employee actions and engagement at the broader impacts of
operations. YNCC has implemented a systematic approach
to energy and process optimisation as part of its company-
wide goal to cut energy consumption and greenhouse gas
emissions by 10.3% by 2020.
Benefitting from Digital Acceleration
For four decades, the process industries focussed on improv-
ing operational performance through digitalisation. Digital
technologies allow chemicals businesses to take this beyond
operations and expand to address key market drivers like accel-
erating innovation, optimising the value chain and aligning
with customer demands, effectively giving them a route map
to future success.
I do not see a future where companies no
longer depend on the control and optimisation
capabilities that have been delivered by digital
solutions on assets around the world
At a recent industry event in Mexico, an audience member
asked me: “Is digital a fad – something that will go away and
no longer have meaning for my business?” I responded with
a resounding “definitely not”. I do not see a future where
companies no longer depend on the control and optimisation
capabilities that have been delivered by digital solutions on
assets around the world.
The market landscape is likely to remain complex and
difficult to navigate - but that must not stand in the way of
chemicals operators. If they want to reap the many rewards
on offer, they cannot afford to delay. The tools, services and
solutions that operators need to manage their complex opera-
tions and achieve new levels of reliability and profitability are
available to them now.
If they want to avoid being left behind by their rivals and
missing out on the chance to drive profits, they must cut
through this complexity and start their journey today. The
efforts demand focus but the payoffs make it well worth the
endeavour.
Paige Marie Morse is Industry Director at AspenTech
22/01/2020 10:24
 feature control room design

Changing Rooms
Andy Brazier discusses best practice on specifying, designing,
commissioning and operating control rooms

S
TANDARDS and guidance relating to control rooms have
been available for many years but the reality is that it is
widely accepted that control room design is often poor.
Often the design is left to engineers who either do not recog-
nise the importance of human factors, or perceive the available
guidance to be inappropriate for ‘real life’ application.
If you have been tasked with designing a new control room
or making significant modifications to an existing one, where
would you even start? So many questions – from colour schemes
to fish tanks to display and monitor settings and more besides.
If this is you, then worry not, help is at hand, in the form of
a new edition of EEMUA 201 (3rd Edition, Control Rooms: A Guide to
their Specification, Design, Commission and Operation), which was
published earlier this year.
Rather than a simple update, the opportunity has been
taken to develop a complete guide to designing and evaluating
all aspects of new and existing control rooms and associated
human machine interfaces (HMIs).
What’s new?
In an ideal world every control room design team would have
access to competent human factors support. In the real world
this is not always practical or possible. The guide aims to direct
designers to recognise the human factors and actively involve
control room operators (CROs) in the process.
EEMUA 201 covers a very important subject. The role of the
CRO in managing risks of modern process plant is indisputable.
Detecting deviations early, diagnosing the causes reliably and
responding promptly and appropriately all contribute to the
avoidance of major accidents and reduce reliance on automated
systems. To do this, CROs need to be healthy and alert, all of the

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 37

controlrooms DG.indd 37 22/01/2020 10:39

 feature control room design
time. The design of the control room and HMI are significant
human performance influencing factors.
The role of the control room operator in
managing risks of modern process plant is
indisputable...To do this, CROs need to be healthy
and alert, all of the time. The design of the
control room and HMI are significant human
performance influencing factors
A key aim with this update has been to put a stronger focus on
human factors throughout. Design is a compromise. There is no
single correct solution and often theory does not match practi-
cal experience. The guide highlights the decisions that need to
be made, and gives information that can be used to achieve an
optimum solution. The guide has been updated with input from
a wide range of people with an interest in control room design,
with a significant input from current CROs who are particularly
important as they have to use whatever the designers come
up with.
Questions answered
The updated guide sets out to answer a number of questions
that are often asked about control room design, where the clear
and practical answers have not always been easy to find. For
example:
• Can we use colour on graphics? ‘Grey screens’ have
become common (with colour only used for critical
information and alarms) but are unpopular with CROs.
The guide states that colour can be used to show routine
status of valves and equipment as long as it does not
detract from critical information. Bright colours should
be reserved for alarms but less saturated colours can
be used for other information. The colour scheme must
be fully documented and applied consistently on every
graphic.
• How many screens should we provide? When asked how
many screens they want, CROs will inevitably answer
“more”. But there are practical limitations on how many
screens can be used at any time and often the problem
is poorly-designed graphics. The guide states that four
screens should be sufficient for the control system HMI.
Others may be provided but should be considered as
secondary to be used by the CRO for monitoring only and
available for others to use.
• Can we stack screens to form two rows? Ergonomic
guidance shows that screens at eye-level cause less
strain on the neck and so there are risks if the CRO has
to look up to see screens at a higher level. But CROs are
generally happy with stacked screens and point out that
they only use the higher-level screens for monitoring,
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 38
controlrooms DG.indd 38
which means they do not look up for very long because
short glances are enough. The guide states that two
rows of screens is allowable and often preferred because
it gives CROs better visibility of the information they
need, with little risk.
• Where do we put our large screens? Most modern
control rooms will include one or more large screens
but their purpose and use often has not been properly
considered. In some cases the overall design of the
control room has been compromised by locating them
in a prominent, primary position. Large screens are
used mainly for monitoring or as a focus for teams
handling abnormal operations including emergencies.
The guide states that large screens can normally be put
in secondary locations, often to the side of the control
console.
• How bright should the lights be? Feedback from CROs
shows that there is no ideal level of illuminance. It is a
very personal issue, partly affected by age, and depends
on the activity being performed, which can change
continuously. The guide states that background lighting
should be similar to the background of the screens used
by CROs and that task lighting should be adjustable by
each CRO to suit their activities and preferences.
• Should there be windows? The trend over recent years
has been to avoid windows in control rooms due to
safety concerns, particularly resilience to explosions.
This is very unpopular with CROs who feel isolated
as a result. The guide states that windows should be
provided wherever reasonably practicable and this
requirement should be considered when locating the
control building and orientating the control room.
• How big should the control room be? Previous guidance
has tended to suggest a footprint per CRO. Whilst this
has been reasonable for larger control rooms it has
not worked for smaller ones. The guide states that the
minimum size is 30 m2 (ie for one CRO work position)
and 45 m2 for two.
• How high should the ceiling be? 3 m has been specified
in the past as the minimum clear height but a lot
of control rooms have lower ceilings. This affects
perceptions of the room and makes it more difficult to
incorporate effective lighting and ventilation and to
arrange large screens for viewing. The guide states that
3 m should be considered as the minimum wherever
reasonably practicable.
• Should adjustable height desks be provided? Desks are
available that can be adjusted, (including some sit-stand
desks). Some people suggest these are required but CROs
do not seem to share this opinion. The guide states that
the desks and chairs provided should accommodate the
CRO population, taking into account their height, but
there is no reason to think that adjustable desks are
necessarily required.
22/01/2020 10:39
 feature control room design

• Should fish tanks be provided? This was a trend a while

ago, with designers suggesting they had a calming or
humanising effect. However, CROs feel they have little
benefit and just give them more work to do. The guide
states that any humanising features (eg fish tanks,
pictures on the wall) should be selected by the CROs and
not imposed by others.
• What colour should the walls be? Pale or earth tone
colours are generally best for the walls but can be
uninspiring. The guide states that more interesting
colours and textures can be used to create some interest
but should not be in the direct view of the CRO when
working at the console. The ceiling should be a lighter
colour and floors darker.

please sir, i want some more: but there are practical

Changing tech
One of the challenges when updating a guide on control room
design is that technology is changing so rapidly. This presents
great opportunities but also risks. The guide includes some
high-level information about some of these emerging issues
to raise awareness and to prompt people to check the latest
good practices. For example, technology that allows access to
control system data and controls from outside of the control
room is already available and becoming more prevalent. People
accessing data from their desktop computer, tablet or mobile
phone can enhance teamwork and data analysis but can cause
confusion about who is in control and who responds if things
go wrong. Also, it is one of many potential security issues.
Security threats are continually evolving and new solutions are
being developed in an attempt to catch up. The guide high-
lights that issues such as remote access and security need to
be recognised very early so that developing solutions is an
integral part of the design, and not handled as an add on at a
later date. A security risk assessment should be a key activity to
determine the level of threat and vulnerability of the systems
being used.
limitations on how many screens can be used at any time
or obtain specialist support. A key message is that you want
to start generating a HFIP as soon as possible in a project, and
plan to review it and keep up to date throughout.
If you have been given the job of reviewing a control room
design, whether this is for a new project or an existing control
room, the guide provides a comprehensive checklist that will
guide you through all the important issues to consider, and
directs you to the sections in the guide which will help you
make your evaluation.
It is not simply a tick-box exercise because every control
room is unique. Instead it assists you in deciding if design is
optimised and to determine if the inherent risks are being
managed effectively. Clearly there are far more existing control
rooms than there will be new projects at any time.
Using the checklist provides you with a basis for a gap
analysis that you can use to decide if risks are as low as reason-
ably practicable (ALARP) and to prioritise any actions for
improvement.

Practical support Andy Brazier AMIChemE is Associate Consultant at Wilde Analysis

EEMUA 201 is not a standard and is not intended to replace
any. Its role is to provide guidance on how compliance can be
achieved as part of a wider context of striving to provide the
best control room possible to the CRO end users.
The guide aims to provide practical support to anyone with
responsibility for control room design. If you are designing a
new control room or making significant modifications to an
existing one the guide includes a template for a human factors
integration plan (HFIP). This is a powerful tool for identify-
ing the potential human factors issues and opportunities at
an early stage in the project and for managing implementa-
tion of appropriate solutions to achieve an optimal design. The
template includes a mixture of standard text for you to adapt
to your project and prompts for when you need to delve deeper
The guide is available to purchase at
www.eemua.org, or as a free
download to employees of EEMUA
member companies. The work described
in this paper was funded by the Engi-
neering Equipment and Materials Users
Association (EEMUA) and supported by
the EEMUA Process Control Desk Design
Working Group with input from the Health
and Safety Executive (HSE).

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 39

controlrooms DG.indd 39 22/01/2020 10:40

 Thinglass/ Shutterstock feature packaging

Packing a Punch
David Smith discusses the importance of product packing
and filling for formulated dry products

D
RY formulated products span a vast spectrum from
instant soups to cold remedies. The spend allocated
globally to R&D and process development for the
upgrade of current products and new ones amounts to billions.
However, during my 30+ years of working in this area, I have
seen very little effort devoted to understanding and validat-
ing the process of putting the new products into their often
newly-designed packaging.
Is this a problem? Yes! Consider just one important aspect
of packing-line operation: “give away” or “over pack” – ie the
amount by which the weight of the product sold exceeds the
marked weight on the pack. In this area alone, as an example,
a typical factory producing dry (powdered) cleaning products
can easily “give away” up to 5% of product with a likely
seven-figure annual value.
DJS Process Consulting is working with clients to improve
their packing operations. Typical packing operations in a plant
producing formulated consumer products often accounts for at
least 50% of the factory area and often higher capital invest-
ment compared to the bulk product processing. Applying the
same unit ops thinking to packing processes can yield signif-
icant operational cost savings and improved product quality. A
win for the consumer and producer.
Unit ops thinking applied to packing
Filling formulated products into their final consumer package
is a process consisting of a number of unit operations.
However, industrially it is rarely given anything like the same
degree of scrutiny as the processing steps involved in making
the bulk product. Consider as an example, the production of
sachets of powdered instant soup. Following the bulk product
production there are four critical unit operations in a packing
line before the product is safely sealed into the final consumer
package (see Figure 1).
Subsequent packing line operations such as secondary

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 40

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 Centre for Process Innvoation feature packaging

figure 1: packing process block flow diagram top to bottom :

Spiroflow
Spiroflow Universal
BLENDED
PRODUCT Bulk Bag Unloader;
FEED
INLET MEASURES: Russell Compact
COMPOSITION
MOISTURE
Sieve (Check screener);
1. POWDER PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION All-Fill International
STORAGE BULK DENSITY cross feed screw
CONTROL LOOP
ON – POWDER
(Flow control device);
WEIGHT
IN FILLING
All-Fill International
2. FLOW
MACHINE CONTROL auger doser with rotary
DEVICE
filling head
FLOW
RATE ex
l l Fi n
sse
Ru
3. CHECK
SIEVE

LEVEL

CONTROL LOOP ON – PACK WEIGHT

4. FILLING
MACHINE

IN PACK FINAL QUALITY

MEASURES–

All-Fill International
PACK WEIGHT
COMPOSITION
BLENDED MOISTURE
PRODUCT PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION
FEED
BULK DENSITY

packing and palletisation will not be discussed in this article

since they should have minimal-to-zero impact on the product
itself.

1. Powder storage – there is normally some form of

buffer between bulk production and packing. For large
volume products this may be bulk silos, for smaller
higher value products it may be fabric bulk bags or
intermediate metal totes.
2. Flow control device – good practice dictates the
inclusion of a check screener before the final filling
or dosing machine to ensure that foreign bodies and
large lumps can’t get into the final pack. Screeners
require a regulated feed to ensure that the mesh is not
overloaded or flooded. The flow control device may be a
rotary valve, short screw feeder or a vibratory feeder.
3. Check screener – common practice, due to the
relatively low tonnage rate of most packing lines, is to
use circular vibratory check screens.
4. Filling machine – the majority of packing lines for
FMCG deploy volumetric fillers due to their simplicity
and speed. The most common type is a vertical auger
filler. As technology improves, gravimetric fillers are l
ationa
Intern
becoming more common, although the incremental A ll-Fill

filling accuracy gain is unlikely to be more than 25%

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 41

packaging DG xxTWEAK PIC CAPTION.indd 41 22/01/2020 11:37

 feature packaging
compared to a well set-up volumetric auger filler linked
to a check weigher with feedback control.
Significant effort will be put into the design of the bulk product
production which will likely involve familiar unit operations
such as raw material feeding and mixing, slurry production
and spray drying. The bulk product will be produced according
to strict quality control covering:
1. Composition – critical to product performance and
consumer satisfaction (a good soup!) and also cost, by
avoiding over addition of expensive ingredients.
2. Moisture content – key for storage stability and
product handleability in downstream operations.
3. Particle size distribution – product aesthetics and
possible impact on product behaviour such as rate of
dissolution in final use.
4. Bulk density – very important to ensure that the final
pack looks full (since normally sold by weight).
These four measures will apply equally to each and every
pack coming off the packing line. Consider that the final pack
may be around 100 g and that a single “flavour” batch for
packing is likely in excess of 1 t. That is 10,000 packs per ton.
Any product quality control regime applied to the final pack
is clearly destructive (the pack has to be opened!) and there-
fore typical sampling rates will be fractions of a percent. It
is generally assumed that if the quality of the bulk product is
strictly controlled (eg gravimetric feeders etc), then what can
go wrong in packing? Surely it’s not hard to put powders into
packs?
How can packing operations destroy good
quality product from bulk production ?
The above description of a typical packing line for solids
is quite simple compared to many processes worked on by
chemical engineers. So, what can and does go wrong? In FMCG,
I see many examples where “perfect” product produced in
bulk is impacted by this “simple” packing process, leading to
the net result that the product in the final consumer pack is far
from perfect.
Consumer impact
1. Segregation – a perfectly homogeneous product feed
to a packing line may segregate or de-mix. Segregation
in packing occurs mainly due to poor hopper and chute
design leading to funnel flow behaviour. More special
cases include asymmetric multi-head filler design
where equipment designers do not understand or fail
to account for potential segregation. Since packing is
typically batch, for the whole batch input = output.
But when the scale of scrutiny is a 100 g pack there can
be serious variations in ingredient levels pack-to-pack.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 42
packaging DG xxTWEAK PIC CAPTION.indd 42
I have seen examples where virtually the whole batch
was near or out-of-limits for a segregation-prone
material, for example, low-level components of a
cleaning product such as enzymes where some packs
are significantly low on the target level.
2. Attrition – in most dry consumer products, particle
size is important, nobody wants to pour out a dusty
product be it a garden pesticide or a laundry detergent.
Poor equipment design and/or lack of scaleup
understanding may lead to significant particle attrition
and dust generation.
3. Moisture pickup – a packing line exposes the product
to the ambient humidity unless specially protected.
A screener, for example, is a perfect environment in
which to equilibrate the product with the ambient
humidity. Moisture pickup can lead to problems in
product storage (lumpy product) or more immediate
problems on the packing line. I have seen a packing
line in India which was incapable of running during
monsoon season because it was originally designed for
a moisture-insensitive product but later formulation
upgrades made the product hygroscopic – a fact that
was not considered during the process scaleup which
resulted in major headaches for the plant during the
monsoon season.
Producer impact
1. Give away (or overpack) – regulations and fair practice
dictate that the pack weight should be no less than
the marked weight (specific country regulations have
some nuances). It is fairly obvious that if the variability
in the filling process is high then the average packed
weight will have to be higher than the marked weight
to ensure no single packs are underfilled. Financially,
this is a loss and better process control can yield
significant reductions in give away. This is another
good example where standard chemical engineering
concepts (process control) are not applied in packing
where detailed setup of weight control is often left to
people with limited process engineering experience.
For example, I have seen a packing line for 1 kg
bags of powder where the feedback from the check
weigher to the volumetric filler was on every bag. But
the speed at which the bag filler adjustment could
respond was mechanically slower than the feedback
rate – hence the whole concept of the control approach
was fundamentally flawed due to a simple lack of
understanding by someone who thought that “more
control” must be better. In this example, a simple
adjustment to the feedback loop based on an average of
five packs, solved the problem of a totally unstable and
useless control loop. Subsequently, the application of
more advanced control concepts used in “mainstream”
process equipment resulted in further improvements.
22/01/2020 11:37
 feature packaging

Centre for Process Innovation

Table 1: Advanced on-line product analysis at CPI

Specialist What does it measure? What does it tell us?

instruments
In-line real-time
Product
NIR Sensors and at-line process
composition
monitoring

Real-time
Non-product
Imaging-based on-screen images,
contact, direct
particle analyser particle size and
imaging system
shape information

Gamma radiation Real-time product

Density
transmission density

Particle counting by
Solid flow meter Flow rate
microwave

Ambient and
Humidity Humidity
product humidity

Product level in
Level probe Powder fill level
filler hopper

Check weigher Weight Pack weights cpi facility: Pack & Fill pilot plant for process
understanding, scaleup and packing of test product

2. Process reliability – any equipment downtimes
represent a loss in production and potential inability
to meet orders. Point 3 above is a good example of
a loss to both the consumer (lumpy product) and to
the producer (blocked equipment). In this specific
example I know that in monsoon season the downtime
could be virtually 100%, all due to the impact of a new
formulation not being considered for the packing line.
A New Approach to Packing Process ScaleUp
A new approach is needed to prevent all the problems described
above, either when a new formulation is packed on an existing
packing line or a brand-new packing line is built for a new
product.
The first requirement is a desire to address the problem and
there are some good examples on developing a fundamental
understanding of the process of the packing unit operations.
I was closely involved in university research (by Chris Hewitt)
which successfully developed a mechanistic understanding of
product buildup in auger fillers1, 2.
or to fill the many current gaps in predictability.
During the last two years, I have had the privilege to use my
industrial packing process experience together with the expe-
rience of The Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) in Sedgefield,
UK, to develop what I believe to be a unique highly instru-
mented (see Table 1) solids packing line for product and process
understanding in pack filling.
The facility (pictured above) can also be used to make test
runs with new products and packages, creating representa-
tive packed samples for consumer testing, ship testing or other
technical tests required by clients.
The Future
Through my consultancy work, I see encouraging signs that
companies are beginning to recognise the value of a process
engineering mind in packing. The new packing pilot line at CPI
can play a major role in helping companies confidently scale
up new products in packing and to develop a more mechanistic
understanding of the critical unit operations.

David J Smith CEng FIChemE is Director of DJS Process Consulting

through my consultancy work,
i see encouraging signs that companies
are beginning to recognise the value of
a process engineering mind in packing
The second requirement is a recognition of the need to apply
chemical engineering scaleup thinking to the unit ops in
packing and to run pilot trials to validate new understanding
References
1. Hewitt,CD, Smith, DJ, Greenwood, RW, Ingram, A, “The
Build-up of Detergent Agglomerates in an Auger Filler”, Powder
Technology, 344, 2019, Elsevier
2. Hewitt, C, Powder build-up in detergent packing lines, Univer-
sity of Birmingham, 2016, www.etheses.bham.ac.uk

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 43

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 feature mining
Monitoring in Mining
Amanda Jasi speaks to Albert Cabrejo and Leonnardo Probst about
their company’s radar-based technology, which is used to
manage potentially tragic mining failures
T
HE unforeseen collapse of mining structures can lead to
terrible consequences. It has led to loss of life, as well as
loss of productivity and equipment damage.
Last year, the potential for tragedy was demonstrated by the
collapse of a mine tailings dam, owned by Brazilian mining giant
Vale, located near Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Tailings are
the waste product of ore processing; a slurry of fine uneconomic
rock and chemical effluent which gets stored in tailings dams.
When Dam 1 (also known as B1) of Vale’s Córrego do Feijão iron
ore mine collapsed, on 25 January 2019, it released a torrent of
muddy slurry which buried the surrounding area, including the
site’s administrative building and canteen. The slurry reached
as far as a nearby community, where it damaged and destroyed
houses, farms, and vehicles. As we go to press, just days before the
one-year anniversary of the incident, 259 people are confirmed
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 44
mining DG v1 GP.indd 44
dead, including 136 contracted workers and community members.
A further 11 people are considered missing.
According to the database World Mine Tailings Failures
(WMTF), the collapse of Dam 1 is the fifth worst failure in recorded
history, as of 15 March 2019. It is another in a series of tailings
storage facility failures. Between 2008 and 2017 there were a total
of 43 tailings dam failures, which ranged from minor to very
serious, and resulted in a total of 435 deaths, says WMTF. The
database additionally finds that serious and very serious failures
are occurring with an upward trend. Severity is decided based on
three variables – release amount, runout distance, and deaths –
but is also greatly dependent on “authoritative narrative”.
Australian company GroundProbe develops technology and
software to monitor and detect movement in the walls of mining
structures, such as open pits, underground mines, and tailings
23/01/2020 11:07
 feature mining
dams. The technology allows customers to understand when
movement becomes a problem and predict when a collapse is
likely to occur.
I spoke to GroundProbe’s Albert Cabrejo, Group Geotechni-
cal Sales Specialist, and Leonnardo Probst, Senior Geotechnical
Engineer, who both play a role in supporting customers to identify
the best monitoring solutions.
The company began in 1993 as an industry-funded PhD project
at the University of Queensland, Australia, investigating the use
of radar technology to solve real-world problems. It aimed to
prove that interferometry could be used to detect and measure
movement on slopes and to build systems to demonstrate this.
Interferometry is a family of investigation techniques that
employs waves, typically electromagnetic waves, for information
extraction.
Established in 2001, the company has since developed a
portfolio of technology – even expanding outside of radar –
and provides its monitoring technologies to clients such as Rio
Tinto, BHP, and Vale. It has deployed more than 400 systems
in 30 countries and its technology has detected more than 900
wall failures – though structural failures do not always lead
to collapse.
based on notifications from customers
which used its equipment to predict failures,
the company claims its technology has saved
more than 20 lives in the past year
Though unable to give full details because of confidentiality,
GroundProbe’s equipment was used to predict the time of a
failure – one of the largest, non-volcanic landslides ever, at a
mine. The prediction gave the owner time to act to prevent loss
of life and equipment before the collapse occurred.
“In the mining industry, the monitoring standard is a
combination of visual inspections and a variety of traditional
spot-measurement devices,” said Probst. “Our technology
allows real-time monitoring, so the customer is able to manage
the geotechnical risk more appropriately and operate with a
high level of safety.”
Radar technology
Radar technology can be used to monitor the deformation in
both open pit walls and tailings dams. Pit walls are the surfaces
within the mine where ore is retrieved, explained Probst.
He added: “The radar is typically assembled on a mobile
trailer to give locational flexibility. Depending on what type of
failure mechanism is being monitored, it can be installed near
an operational area.”
“There are different types of radars in the industry,” commented
Cabrejo. “The technology that we use is always based on
interferometry.”
In radar technology, interferometry refers to methods that
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 45
mining DG v1 GP.indd 45
measure phase shift on the signal that is reflected off the slope
between consecutive scans of exactly the same area. “Specifically,
the change in phase angle, and we convert that phase angle into
deformation. That’s how we get very high accuracy,” said Cabrejo.
“Interferometry allows us to measure with an accuracy of
0.1 mm movement per scan,” added Cabrejo. He added that the
company’s newest technology, SSR-Omni can scan 360°
horizontally and 60° vertically, with a maximum range of up to
5.6 km, and usable data is delivered every two minutes.
The equipment employs microwaves. Radar equipment sends
the waves out to travel through the atmosphere to the wall within
the monitoring range.
Upon bouncing back to the equipment, the wave signals provide
information about several parameters including amplitude, the
strength of the signal; range, the distance between the radar
and the pit; and coherence, which describes changes on the wall
surface such as cracking or contamination with materials such
as snow or water. The equipment also measures environmental
parameters, such as temperature, pressure, rain, and humidity, as
well as the quality of the radar reading.
From the radar readings, it is possible to derive factors such
as deformation, velocity of deformation, inverse velocity –
which enables forecasting of collapse – and velocity ratio. This
information is presented in plots displaying, for example,
deformation vs time.
Importantly, radar data is also presented as maps, such as
deformation heatmaps with a colour scale representing the
amount of movement. In a technique unique to GroundProbe,
deformation heatmaps are directly draped over a camera image
of the scan area, co-locating the radar data with the real-time
photograph and 3D models. This is achieved using the visual
capture system of slope stability radars (SSRs) which feature a
camera to take photographs of the scan area.
Cabrejo explained that geotechnical engineers assess the
stability of mining structures using radar outputs, by looking
for changes in deformation trends. On maps, engineers look
for reasonable patterns of deformation to identify and separate
false deformations, which may be caused by noise from mining
equipment, from actual deformation. Then they can look at plots
to identify what changes are occurring. “Ultimately [they] look
for accelerating trends, like exponential trends, something that
is just increasing and increasing… and at some point, is likely to
break.”
Once deformation begins to occur, there should be notification
to indicate it as the new area of hazard. It can then be focussed on
and specific alerts could be configured to monitor it, ultimately
aiming to identify exponential trends, which indicate potential
failure.
Cabrejo emphasised the importance of interpreting the data.
To correctly identify failures, geotechnical engineers need to
be properly trained to understand how to correctly configure
the equipment, understand the collapse prediction tools, and to
correctly read outputs, he said.
Probst said: “We have geotechnical teams in Indonesia and
23/01/2020 11:07
 feature mining
geotech monitoring station
(GMS): a robotic total station
Chile that can support customers with monitoring. They work 24
hours per day, seven days a week, and when they detect a defor-
mation, they inform the client about the risk area.
“We use a communication protocol called TARP (Trigger
Action Response Plan). In this documentation we define, with
the customer, the procedure of what to do in case of detection of
deformation on an area. Depending on the pattern and velocity of
the deformation, different actions need to be taken.”
According to Probst, the TARP protocol also lays out how the
customer is to be warned of the new hazard, for example by email,
phone call, or even WhatsApp.
Further improving safety
Beyond using technology, Probst and Cabrejo commented on
how else mining safety could be improved.
Both agreed on the importance of redundancy and that no
singular type of technology can provide all the information
needed to help ensure safety. Through a combination of differ-
ent technologies, companies can manage more risks than with
radar alone, said Cabrejo.
chemical engineers could contribute to mining
safety by improving ore recovery. This would
enable less waste to be generated and stored
in storage facilities, such as tailings dams, and
improve the safety of these structures
Probst added that it is important to use more than one type
of technology, as geotechnical engineers rely on models to tell
them how the material within these structures behaves. Models
don’t always accurately represent reality, so it’s important to
reinforce findings with data provided by different technologies.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 46
mining DG v1 GP.indd 46
“Many types of technologies can be used together with the
radar,” explained Probst. “In the case of superficial deformation
monitoring, in addition to radar, we provide the Geotechnical
Monitoring Station (GMS), which is a highly accurate laser, and
vibration sensors.
“For other types of monitoring the customers can use GNSS,
inclinometers, piezometers, seismic sensors, extensometers,
etc.”
Inclinometers measure internal deformations, piezometers
measure changes in internal water levels, and extensometers
measure the elongation of a material under stress.
In addition to technology, Cabrejo commented on the
importance of training. Monitoring tailings dams with state-
of-the-art technology is relatively new for the industry. More
professionals around the world are needed to fulfil the posi-
tions required to monitor tailings dams. It is important that
new professionals are properly educated and trained for them
to be ready for the challenges ahead. This should be part of a
global push.
Probst added that chemical engineers could contribute to
mining safety by improving ore recovery. This would enable
less waste to be generated and to be stored in storage facil-
ities, such as tailings dams, and improve the safety of these
structures.
Outside of safety, Cabrejo discussed how chemical
engineers could help to improve the environmental friendliness
of the company’s equipment by improving fuel cell technology
to enable a transition from diesel engines.
“Fuel cells are a game-changing technology for many
industries and come directly from the laboratories of chemical
engineers. With a more direct conversion of energy, these fuel
cells offer greater output of electricity, less wasted energy
through heat and friction, longer product lifespans and lower
emissions.”
23/01/2020 11:07
 Hazards30
18– 20 May 2020, Manchester, UK
Hazards 30 is IChemE’s annual process safety conference, the leading event of its kind in Europe.
It will explore every major aspect of process safety and help you to learn from the experience of
others.Join us to stay up to date with process safety good practice, discover new techniques and
approaches, and explore lessons learned from past incidents and near-misses.
You’ll also have an opportunity to network with 300+ other process safety professionals. Hazards is an
international, industry-focused event and attracts practitioners from all over the world.
Hazards 30 will mark 60 years since Hazards was first held in Manchester in 1960. Since then, Hazards
has grown in size and influence, continuing to be at the forefront of sharing new knowledge and
disseminating good process safety practice across the process industries and beyond.

Key features
■■ 100+ oral presentations and posters from industry practitioners, researchers and regulators
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Find out more and register: www.icheme.org/hazards30

Sponsorship and exhibition packages

are available
TCE944

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T942 Hazards FP AD.indd 1 05/12/2019 11:02

tce.944.47.indd 2 23/01/2020 2:13 PM
 viewpoint careers

Do You Have
a Moment?
Ewan Stewart shares the hard-earned lessons of retrenchment

“D
O you have a moment Ewan?” The tone was
different; softer, subdued, more serious. As I
turned to greet my boss’ unseasonal visit, I knew
that my time was up. The year was 2015 and the plummeting
crude oil price was sending shockwaves throughout industry;
I was about to join the rapidly-increasing bodycount of the oil
and gas sector’s unemployed. As I struggled to regain control
of my career, the next few months would be the toughest
learning experience of my life.
My story is not unique for that period. Boy gets good job, builds
confidence, makes strong progress towards his career goals;
boy learns he’s not invincible as geopolitics and oversup-
ply turn his industry upside down. Within my week’s notice
period, I found myself fighting against the current, in arguably
the worst engineering job-market in a generation; the same
downturn that forced highly experienced engineers into early
retirement, prolonged gardening leave, back to university,
or into completely unrelated career paths. For those like me,

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 48

careers DG.indd 48 23/01/2020 15:00

 viewpoint careers
fixated on the idea of continuing in my profession, the task
was an arduous one: compete against hundreds of equally-
qualified and hardworking chemical engineers for seemingly
only a handful of job openings. Globally.
As my journey wore on, I noticed a surprising trend. Many
of those that I respected most as engineers really struggled,
perhaps even more than me, to find their way back in. My
premise is therefore that it’s not the best engineers that will
bounce back in a severe downturn; rather it’s the ones who are
the best connected and the most able to adapt to the situation.
This article will follow my job search, exploring the insecu-
rities, conceits and misconceptions that I had to overcome
before I was finally able to regain a foothold. I hope that in
writing this I can provide some encouragement to those who
find themselves in a similar situation, now and in the future.
LESSON #1: BACK YOURSELF IMPLICITLY
A lot of people have trouble selling themselves to their full
potential and I was no different. My first few weeks were spent
diligently trawling the job boards, prioritising prospects, and
aiming to submit one quality application each day. However,
after a few weeks of this, my phone hadn’t rung once. Some-
thing was wrong and I suspected that it was my CV. Whilst this
had been sufficient to secure positions during boom times,
under scrutiny it was now inadequate to the point of just being
a bullet-list of projects I’d worked on. At the time, I could think
of nothing more excruciating than listing my achievements on
paper let alone at an interview. I needed help.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I sought professional advice,
which led me to create an achievement-based CV – a format I
would recommend. The idea is that under each job entry, the CV
would have a list of accomplishments detailing your role on a
particular project and what the end result of your actions was,
preferably with metrics included. For example, the bullet point
that had originally read “Water injection project X” was then
expanded to read “Produced operating procedures to allow the
safe recommencement of water injection leading to 800 bbl/d
increase in crude oil production...” Applying this method to
multiple years of experience, I found the conventional wisdom
of the 2-page CV to be very limiting. My resulting CV was 3–4
pages and packed with examples.
LESSON #2: ADOPT AN OPEN MINDSET
With my shiny new CV to market-standard, I hit the job-boards
again with renewed vigour. However, as radio silence contin-
ued, frustration began to set in. Whilst I genuinely don’t
believe there is anything wrong with an involuntary career
gap, negative sentiments can be difficult to shake when your
professional viability is on the line. Part of me was embar-
rassed to find myself in this situation, and this had resulted in
an almost entirely insular approach to my job search. Perhaps
the most anxiety comes from not really knowing whether or
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 49
careers DG.indd 49
not you are doing the right things. However, if you are able to
constantly challenge your assumptions, the resulting insights
will allow you to change your methods and set yourself on the
right path. Clarity is a great thing; I just needed to experience
more pain before I would start to question my own mindset.
My approach very slowly began to change and it started by
reaching out to recruitment agencies. However, even though
I was seeking advice, I would dismiss it out of hand if I
didn’t like what I was hearing. For example on learning that
companies were using software to screen CVs, I couldn’t accept
that all of my carefully-scripted cover letters and custom-
ised CVs may never reach human eyes. How dare they – all
applicants must be assessed on their individual merits! The
correct approach, of course, would have been to use this
valuable intel to my advantage by ensuring that all keywords
from the advert were included in my CV.
if you are able to constantly challenge
your assumptions, the resulting insights
will allow you to change your methods
and set yourself on the right patH
As the weeks went by, I would slowly reconsider my position.
The non-reaction to my applications made me think that
perhaps I should be listening more. I started to put myself in
the mind of a hiring manager. If I had more than 100 CVs in my
inbox, would I really have time to read all of them as well as do
my day-job? Or would I use other methods to narrow the field?
Would I take the risk of hiring someone with no experience in
my industry and living in a completely different region? It’s not
impossible, but it’s definitely a tough sell!
There were other things that irked me that I was just going
to have to accept, eg candidate profiling, where employers in
particular parts of the world can specify the gender, age range,
and nationality they want. The false adverts, or CV harvesting
exercises. By accepting these for what they were, I was able to
qualify the vacancies I was applying for and reduce unneces-
sary effort. I was starting to learn.
LESSON #3: NETWORK FOR SUCCESS
Perhaps my most significant breakthrough came during a
conversation with a fellow job-seeker who had just secured
a new contract. Being rather perplexed that I hadn’t seen his
position advertised, I found out that it hadn’t been. A former
colleague had simply heard he was looking for work and reached
out to him directly. This information was transformational for
me. I had just discovered the existence of an underground job
market, a notion that I might have scoffed at just a few weeks
prior. The competitive advantage of this was immediately clear
as I switched my attention to creating opportunities for myself.
From then on, my time was spent on LinkedIn identifying
decision-makers, on the phone to ex-colleagues, and around
23/01/2020 15:00
 viewpoint careers

town meeting anyone that would speak to me.

As I understand it, even in the worst job market there will
still be positive turnover in isolated pockets. This could be
in the form of sub-sectors that benefit from the new market
conditions, large projects with committed spend that have
passed the point of no return, or the more nimble consultancies
with low overheads that are able to out-compete the estab-
lished design houses in a low-price environment. The smart
job-seeker might be well placed trying to identify where these
are and making contact with the organisations directly.

Who’s more likely to get the job: the trusted

engineer that they let go but haven’t heard
from since, or the newcomer that’s checking
in once every few weeks?

My advice when reaching out is to keep the tone conversational

and to be persistent but not intrusive. Who’s more likely to get
connected: the best way to build a network
the job: the trusted engineer that they let go but haven’t heard
is to do so when you are not looking for work
from since, or the newcomer that’s checking in once every few
weeks? It might be closer than you think!

community, then your community will present opportunities

BOY SUCCEEDS
In the end, I was able to bring everything together. Yes, there
were many false starts along the way; interviews I messed up,
offers that never came through. My breakthrough came via
an industry conference which I had visited in previous years
and knew to be well-attended. I carefully did my research on
who would be exhibiting and created a plan of who I wanted to
speak to, leaving home with a folder full of CVs. Having struck
a connection at one particular stand, later that same day I
received an email from my new contact putting me in touch
with the hiring manager of the subsidiary I was interested in.
The only thing then in the way of me regaining my career was
the interview, during which I made sure to impress. My plight
was over!
to you if you ever need it. There are so many other advantages
beyond the networking. You will become a more informed
engineer, learn new skills which can influence your career, and
will amass more CPD hours than you can keep track of!
FINAL THOUGHTS
Retrenchment is just part of the ebb and flow of engineering
work; projects end, companies downsize, industries contract.
It is not the worst thing that can possibly happen to you,
although it would no doubt feature in most people’s top ten. In
some instances it may even be a welcome time for change, an
opportunity to leapfrog into a higher position at a new organ-
isation, or, for the more adventurous, a chance to create your
own business.

LESSON #4: GET INVOLVED

In hindsight, my biggest error was not being connected enough
from the get-go. Establishing a network when you need it is
all well and good; however it can seem a bit contrived. On the
other hand, if you already know who’s who in town, then you
can feel comfortable reaching out. I believe that the best way
to build a network is to do so when you are not looking for
work. One way of doing this is to get involved in your local
engineering community by attending industry events. An even
better idea might be to join a committee, where you could get
involved in organising site tours, promoting STEM/diversity,
mentoring, guest lecturing or acting as an interviewer for
members seeking Chartered status.
My belief is that if you can become an active member of your
Retrenchment is challenging, but if you take
the time to learn its lessons you will
adapt and emerge stronger
Retrenchment is challenging, but if you take the time to
learn its lessons you will adapt and emerge stronger. I found
networking to be hands-down my biggest differentiator. Ask
yourself honestly, if you were retrenched tomorrow, would you
boot up the laptop, or would you be able to pick up the phone?
Ewan Stewart CEng MIChemE is a member of the Queensland Joint
Chemical Engineering Committee

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 50

careers DG.indd 50 23/01/2020 15:00

 ChemEngDayUK 2020
Call for Abstracts
ChemEngDayUK is the annual opportunity for researchers,
scientists and engineers to share the latest technological
advances and research in chemical engineering and
related professions. We would like to invite you to submit
new and innovative abstracts for possible presentation at
this conference.
Please visit: www.chemengdayuk.co.uk for further
information and registration details.
Abstract submission deadline: Monday 10 February 2020

Themes
Topics for this year’s conference include the following themes:
■ Process Modelling
■ Energy & Sustainability
■ Biochemical Engineering
■ Advanced Materials (Powders, polymers, soft solids, etc.)
■ Educational Theme: ‘CDIO and Future Approaches to
Learning & Teaching in Chemical Engineering’.

Sponsorship
We have sponsorship and exhibition packages to suit every budget and are happy to
discuss any specific requirements with you.
Find out more by calling +44(0)1788 534472 or emailing tvickers@icheme.org

7-8 April 2020,

The University of Bradford,
Bradford, UK

tce.944.51.indd 2 23/01/2020 2:14 PM

 feature member survey
What Matters to You?
Wendy Wilson reports on the actions from the
IChemE Member Engagement survey
I
N March 2019, all IChemE members were invited to take part
in a wide-ranging member engagement survey. The survey
was jointly commissioned by the Institution’s Trustee-led
Member Engagement Working Group and IChemE Congress.
More than 1,500 people participated in the survey, and follow-
ing the analysis of the responses received, the findings were
published in The Chemical Engineer (Issue 937/8; July/August
2019). These findings were also used as input into the IChemE
Strategy 2024.
Table 1 summarises the ten key improvement areas that were
identified, as published in The Chemical Engineer, along with
the intent behind them and the recommended next actions.
A number of the actions such as Programme SMART, learned
society, and IChemE100 are receiving a lot of publicity so this
article will focus primarily on some of the other action areas.
IChemE as an ambassador
Following the launch of Strategy 2024 in August last year, a lot of
time and effort has been made to communicate the strategy to
the membership. There has also been a series of articles in The
Chemical Engineer focussing on careers in chemical engineering.
wilsonsurvey DG SB.indd 52
Future plans in this area include revisiting the whynotchemeng
programme as well as working with members to deliver on the
three key topic areas agreed by the Learned Society Commit-
tee: responsible production, major hazard identification and
management, and digitalisation. We will also be looking to
leverage our involvement with other PEIs and Engineerin-
gUK to help raise the profile of chemical engineering-based
career paths and to support collaborative opportunities, such
as support for World Engineering Day on 4 March.
IChemE to do more to influence
politicians and policy makers
I am very pleased to report that a lot has happened in this
area to demonstrate what we have been doing. A monthly
Influencing Policy blog has been launched (https://bit.ly/36C-
C7FT), along with a new area (https://bit.ly/2sW5ncf) on the
website which covers activities in respect to policy brief-
ings and consultations. In the consultation area, we recently
invited contributions relating to developing a national food
strategy. Additionally, we’re working with the American
Institute of Chemical Engineers on a discussion paper setting
out how chemical engineers might contribute to address-
ing the plastics challenge and we have supported the work of
the Royal Academy of Engineering-led National Engineering
Policy Centre in a number of technical areas. In addition to this
22/01/2020 11:43
 feature member survey

Table 1: Key improvement areas identified and status of actions

Improvement area Intent Actions

IChemE as a Programme SMART (Sustainable Membership Achieved via Robust Continue to deliver and provide regular
qualifying body Transactions) was initiated in 2017 and aims to deliver sustainable member updates on Programme
membership growth and greater clarity around membership SMART.
structure, while maintaining and enhancing IChemE’s high
qualification standards. It’s a group of four projects, with integrated
marketing support, addressing process improvements and
business-like thinking, flexible pathways to membership, profes-
sional development support, and sustainable volunteer support.

IChemE as an This is all about doing more to raise the profile of chemical Implement Strategy 2024.
ambassador engineers, the role that chemical engineering plays in modern life
and being more active in encouraging young people to pursue a
career in chemical engineering. All these have been covered in our
Strategy 2024 and will also be addressed as part of the celebration of
100 years of professional chemical engineering in 2022.

IChemE as a learned Communication of what is going on in this area is key. To be Implement the learned society
society successful, the learned society focus needs to be to develop strategy and place greater emphasis on
knowledge, generate meaning and deliver influence. To assist with communicating learned society activity
this a Learned Society Committee has now been formed and later in The Chemical Engineer and on the
this year a new online Knowledge Hub will be launched. Funding for IChemE website.
SIGs has also been overhauled.

IChemE to do more to The IChemE needs to do more to collaborate with other Implement Strategy 2024, coupled
influence politicians societies and institutions to influence policy, engage with govern- with an increased commitment to
and policy makers ments, intergovernmental organisations and other relevant bodies. communicate our policy work via The
To do this successfully we need to involve our members and commu- Chemical Engineer, the IChemE website,
nicate what is being done. and social media.

Methods of engaging This is about ensuring that our communications to the members are Prioritise your preferred engagement
with members (top relevant, understanding member requirements, and providing more channels and develop more personalised
3 are email, The personalised content. content by helping you better
Chemical Engineer & communicate your interests and
the IChemE website) preferences with us.

Special interest We need to ensure that both the SIGs and MGs are relevant and Place extra emphasis on telling
groups and members provide the content that the membership wants as well as providing members that SIGs and MGs are free
groups both virtual and F2F events to be all inclusive of their membership. to join and unlimited in number.
The VP International Trustee role has now been renamed VP Support Congress in its work to better
Regions and the intent is to set up a Regions Committee (similar to understand why more members aren’t
the Learned Society Committee) that will provide guidance to the opting to join the groups.
member groups and country boards worldwide.

Volunteering with Volunteering is key to the success of IChemE and there needs to be
IChemE more visibility of what volunteering opportunities exist and what
they entail. It is also key that we have a mechanism in place to
recognise our volunteers.
Publish a page on the IChemE website
signposting all of the volunteer oppor-
tunities available across the Institution.
Identify further opportunities and ideas
to recognise and thank volunteers.

Resources provided by We need to understand the continued professional development Undertake work to better understand
IChemE needs of our membership as well as how they want to receive this the requirements of those that don’t
training (F2F versus virtual). feel the current services are of use.

Support for those who In order to maximise the support we can provide to members that Ensure the 2020 Member Engagement
work away from home are away from their home, we need to ensure that we can provide Survey helps us better understand the
for significant periods global services from a global IChemE which essentially means 24/7 true scale of members working away
of time access where ever you are in the world. from home and for how long.

Follow up survey Commit to a more in-depth 2020

Member Engagement Survey with
appropriate resources to ensure the
results are statistically representative
of the membership, with a view to
repeating the survey on an annual or
biennial basis.

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 53

wilsonsurvey DG SB.indd 53 22/01/2020 11:43

 feature member survey
there have also been a number of policy articles in The Chemical
Engineer and IChemE was represented at the Parliamentary Links
Day 2019.
Future plans include developing insight and opinion and
providing technical leadership in addressing the UN’s Sustain-
able Development Goals, which include addressing climate
change, responsible production and consumption, and develop-
ing affordable and clean energy.
Methods of engaging with members
A new membership database project is progressing towards
a Spring 2020 launch. It will be closely followed by a new
bulk emailing system which will include development of new
processes which will enable members to opt in (or out) of
communications as well as document their preferences. The
IChemE website will continue to evolve by developing better
insight into how members use and access content. In future,
we’re also looking to implement external sharing in Share-
Point to enable members to collaborate 24/7.
Special interest groups and members groups
A new funding mechanism for SIGs is now in place and this has
been used for 2020 business planning. Since removing the charge
for membership to additional SIGs, membership has risen by 20%.
Future priorities include encouraging SIGs to identify how their
work fits into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and
the Global Grand Challenges (GGCs).
In conjunction with VP Regions, IChemE has introduced a new,
member-led temporary committee to assist with the develop-
ment and formal adoption of the Regions Committee. The Regions
Working Group is providing a consultative foundation for issues
concerning national boards and local members groups, such as:
legal governance; operational governance (which includes items
such as charitable objectives and best use of funds); and national
board development.
Ultimately the Regions Committee will be a member-led forum
for sharing good practice and helping prioritise activity that
delivers member engagement.
Volunteering with IChemE
This is one of the four priority areas of our new Presi-
dent, Stephen Richardson, and one that I am very passionate
about. I am pleased to report that in early December last
year, the President formally launched a two-year project to
“Improve Recognition and Support for Volunteers”. A Volun-
teer Programme Support Manager has been recruited to
support this project. There have also been a number of articles
in The Chemical Engineer recognising volunteers, and IChemE
supported International Volunteer Day last December. This
work dovetails with the existing initiative that has already
commenced in the Qualifications area.
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 54
wilsonsurvey DG SB.indd 54
Resources provided by IChemE
A programme of online training events has now been
made available, and after a slow start we are now seeing
interest levels and registrations starting to grow in line with
forecasts. The ultimate aim is to enable members to access
materials 24/7.
Support for those who work away from
home for significant periods of time
The Board of Trustees has identified several areas requir-
ing further work that will help improve our digital services.
These activities will follow on from the rollout of the new
membership database and we will be consulting on them at the
appropriate time.
Follow up survey
This will be carried out in Q 3/Q4 2020. We will use an external
agency which will allow us to focus upon the ten improve-
ment areas using phone calls and focus group approaches. An
external agency will ensure that we use a statistically robust
approach to interviewee selection and will also ensure that we
have the necessary know-how to produce relevant statistical
analysis and action-based reports.
Writing this...has made me realise just how
much has been achieved since we published the
outcome of the survey six months ago. This is a
testimony to the hard work of both the IChemE
staff and our volunteers
Writing this article has made me realise just how much has
been achieved since we published the outcome of the survey six
months ago. This is a testimony to the hard work of both the
IChemE staff and our volunteers. Not only that, but the timing
of the survey enabled us to influence the IChemE Strategy 2024
document which has meant that a large number of the actions
are at the forefront of our everyday activities.
The Board of Trustees has asked me to keep it updated
regarding the status of these actions at each Board meeting,
and I will provide another update here later this year.
I also feel that we have taken on board your views and
concerns from the survey and made some real progress against
them. I hope that after reading this article you agree.
And finally – there are lots of exciting things going on
in IChemE at the moment and if you are thinking of volun-
teering now is a great time to do so. I would wholeheartedly
recommend it!
Wendy Wilson CEng MIChemE is IChemE Trustee and Chair of the
Member Engagement Working Group
22/01/2020 11:43
 feature icheme100

IChemE100
John McGagh talks about his new role as
Chair of the IChemE100 Steering Committee

M
ANY members will know me from my previous roles Hopefully, by now, most
as an IChemE Trustee, as IChemE’s President from members will have seen the
2017–2018, and Past President from 2018–2019. communications asking for
Having now served my time as a Trustee, in both Australia and members to volunteer for
on the IChemE Board of Trustees, not one to rest on my laurels, these working parties,
I’ve got stuck straight into a new role as Chair of the IChemE100 provided they have the
Steering Committee. necessary time and the
IChemE100 is the name of our centenary project. The name was necessary skills. If not, more
chosen from a poll of members in 2019. information about this can be
IChemE celebrates its 100th birthday in 2022. This is a found on IChemE’s website at
once-in-a-century opportunity to reflect upon and honour the www.icheme.org/icheme100
work of chemical engineers, past and present, working within the When I’m not working
profession in their mission to advance the contribution of chemical on IChemE100, I’m either
engineering worldwide for the benefit of society. It’s also an at home with my family or
opportunity to identify the vital role that chemical engineers will working on one of my numerous business ventures. One of my
play in helping to meet a range of significant global challenges for main passions is artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on the
society in the future. role of the chemical engineer in the future.
AI is not a specific technology, it’s a collection of computa-
tional methods and techniques. There is no single AI and there is
Chemical engineers have much to a lack of consensus among both AI researchers and wider society
contribute to the welfare of society as on a universal definition. AI means different things to different
the planet approaches 11.5bn people! people. I define AI as a collection of interrelated technologies used
to solve problems and perform tasks that, when humans do them,
When I was asked by the Board of Trustees to commit to chairing requires thinking. As part of the IChemE100 project, we will be
the IChemE100 Steering Committee, and steering this centenary looking at how the future role of the chemical engineer might be
project towards a successful conclusion in 2022, I knew that this impacted by AI among other things.
would be a significant volunteer commitment, but it’s one that I The seminal work of Chemical Engineering Matters framed
have given to the Institution and profession that I personally owe a range of challenges and associated vistas that chemical
so much. engineers contribute to, in order to secure wellbeing for all. This
This project will be led by members. We are now in the work provides a foundation to our thinking around the 100-year
process of setting up five member-led working parties, so that celebration. Chemical engineers have much to contribute to the
members can get involved in the planning and preparation for our welfare of society as the planet approaches 11.5bn people before
centenary. The first three working parties will focus on this century end – we will all be very busy!
developing content (what we are going to say), looking at the past, If you would like to get more involved in helping me with
present and future of chemical engineering. the IChemE100 centenary project or if you would like to suggest
There will also be a working party for identifying services centenary ideas please email icheme100@icheme.org
(how we are going to say it), and a working party for developing
platforms (where we are going to say it), plus exploring fundraising
opportunities. John McGagh, Chair of the IChemE100 Steering Committee

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 55

icheme100 DG.indd 55 22/01/2020 10:54

 feature learned society
Addressing the
Grand Challenges
Claudia Flavell-While looks at learned society priorities
I
CHEME’S mission, as set out in Strategy 2024, is to be a
vibrant learned society that addresses the global grand
challenges. IChemE’s principal technical committee, the
Learned Society Committee (LSC), has been tasked with engaging
IChemE’s members around delivering this.
LSC has prioritised focussing its initial work on responsible
production, major hazard identification and management, and
digitalisation. Below are the initial interpretations of these
priorities.
Responsible production: This term encompasses chemical
engineering’s role in combating climate change and delivering
sustainability alongside broader welfare gains such as access to
basic services, green and decent jobs, and a better quality of life
for all. It means contributing to:
• reducing the carbon footprint of energy generation and
commodity extraction and processing through to final
product in line sufficiently to limit the global temperature
rise to well below 2oC;
• using resources sustainably through closed-loop processes
and use of alternative feedstocks to safeguard key
resources as well as conserve and, wherever possible,
restore habitat areas; and
• ensuring our industries offer meaningful employment
opportunities and use technologies suited to the situation
and location, globally.
The LSC is looking at practical options to improve the use of
footprinting tools across the broad range of process industries.
Major hazard identification and management: Major accidents
are happening regularly in the process industries and more
generally, often with similar root causes. To address this, IChemE
wants to lead the development of a holistic, multi-disciplinary
systems approach to major hazard management that embraces
asset life cycles and builds on existing ‘process safety’ method-
ologies. This strand is led by Jim Carrick, who leads the LSC on
safety and risk.
Digitalisation: Digitalisation will have a transformative effect
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 56
ichemeLSC DG xx TWEAK SPACE.indd 56
across all aspects of the discipline, from manufacturing to
research, and this needs to be reflected in teaching and training.
IChemE will support the ethical use of digital technology to
improve research and the supply chain in the process industries.
Alexandra Meldrum, the LSC subject area lead on education, inno-
vation and research, is leading the digitalisation work.
All subject area leads are now contacting IChemE’s special
interest groups and other learned society bodies for input into
what progress IChemE could make by 2024 against these three
priority topics, and how the SIGs can contribute to achieving this
vision. If you are reading this and would like to contribute, please
join a special interest group (it’s free and you can join as many as
relate to your expertise and interests) or contact lsc@icheme.org
Sustainability and climate change
As Stephen Richardson reminded us in his presidential address,
IChemE currently has no published position on climate change, and
that is something the LSC wants to address urgently. Neil Blundell,
subject area lead for energy, is leading the process. An initial
proposal will be worked up with the IChemE’s Energy Centre and
then sent for consultation with the other SIGs. The intention is for
the new position statement to be broadly developed by the end of Q2
and published in Q3, ahead of COP26.
Separately, the LSC has taken on an initiative brought by the
Sustainability SIG to review IChemE’s purpose as set out in its
Royal Charter, to make clearer our role in ensuring sustainable and
responsible processes and working practices.
Priority topics in publications
The priority topics will be reflected in IChemE’s publications
output in 2020 with special issues of our journals focussing on
climate change and life cycle analysis; a series of practical articles
on improving the carbon footprint of plants and processes, to be
published in The Chemical Engineer; and the Loss Prevention Bulletin
will publish papers on major hazard installations.
Check out progress at www.icheme.org/lsc, and via The Chemical Engineer,
which will be publishing short regular updates
23/01/2020 17:29
 obituary john davidson

John Davidson
1926–2019
J
OHN Davidson, often referred to as a “founding father of

Trinity College Cambridge

fluidisation” in chemical engineering was born in Newcas-
tle-upon-Tyne, UK on 7 February 1926 and died in Cambridge
on Christmas Day 2019. He was proud of his North East roots
and he could produce a convincing Geordie accent to surprised
company. He recalled a bomb falling on the house next to his,
which mercifully did not explode. With expertise in mathemat-
ics at his grammar school, John was admitted to Trinity College,
Cambridge towards the end of the War to read engineering (then
mechanical sciences); and two years later he graduated top of his
year. Industrial experience with Rolls Royce, and marriage to
Susanne in 1948 then followed but by 1950 he was back at Trinity
as a Research Fellow. Academically, a new opportunity opened up.
The first Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering (Terence
Fox) was a man of great intellectual ability directed more towards
teaching than research. He appointed John onto his staff in 1952
as a mechanical engineer and I followed in 1956 from physical
chemistry. We had teaching duties but we also had much to learn.
When Peter Danckwerts succeeded Fox he took the opportunity
to strengthen the department’s growing reputation for research.
John was the first to appreciate the fluid mechanics of a flui-
dised bed of particles: small bubbles rising through such beds are
spherical but, importantly, at larger flows the bubbles are spher-
ical-capped. John’s elegant work was beautifully confirmed by
X-ray work at Harwell by Peter Rowe and his co-workers. John
and I gathered a range of publications into a book entitled Flui-
dised Particles, published in 1963 by Cambridge University Press. It
is the pride of my professional life to have been the junior co-au- in Lincolnshire, UK, which killed 28 people and seriously injured
thor of that book. In 1966 John and I visited the Soviet Union and a further 36. John was invited to join the Court of Inquiry and,
we discovered our book had been translated into Russian, without after checking there would be no conflict with his plans to go to
of course our knowledge, consent or royalty. Nevertheless we were Australia in January 1975, he accepted. He found, however, that
treated handsomely during our visit. John was appointed Steward 70 days of public hearings meant that his future plans had to be
of Trinity in the late 1950s when the College undertook major work put on hold. He did find the Inquiry intellectually absorbing and it
on its kitchens first built in 1605. Plainly the College judged that a provided material for some examination questions at Cambridge.
highly intelligent engineer with problem-solving abilities would be John received senior recognition from many learned
a good interface between it and contractors. And so it proved. John societies, notably the Fellowship of the Royal Society (Royal
was a busy man and, later, he was reluctant to allow “too busy” as Medal), the Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering
an excuse for any shortfall in high quality work. (Founder Fellow 1976), and recently IChemE’s creation of the John
In 1970 John was IChemE President and we travelled with Davidson Medal to celebrate mentoring in engineering education,
the then General Secretary, David Sharp, to Australia to attend in which John excelled throughout his long life. He is survived by
Chemeca, an international conference arranged by IChemE and the his children Peter (who read chemical engineering) and Isabel (who
Australian Academy of Science. Sharp was bemused in all our city read law). He was a very good man, fondly remembered, and a great
calls down under we were generously greeted by former students. chemical engineer.
Thereafter, he always referred to his time in the hands of the
“Cambridge Mafia”.
On 1 June 1974 there was a devastating explosion at Flixborough Sir David Harrison CBE FREng, IChemE Past President 1991–92

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davidsonobituary DG.indd 57 22/01/2020 10:42

 news icheme

governance
Call for nominations
for Trustee and
Congress roles
IChemE is calling for members to
nominate themselves for vacant
positions on the Board of Trustees
and Congress.  
left to right: lynn gladden, Nominations for duly qualified
mark apsey and adisa azapagic persons are available for the Deputy
President and Honorary Treasurer
on the Board of Trustees.  
awards Twenty roles are available on
Congress, the member  advisory
body to the Board of Trustees.  
Three chemical engineers recognised Nominations for the  availa-
ble  roles  open on  3 February  and
in New Year’s Honours close at 09.30 GMT on 25 February.  
If multiple valid nominations are
THREE Fellows of IChemE have been awarded in the Queen’s 2020 New Year’s Hon- received for any of the vacant posi-
ours list. Lynn Gladden has been recognised with a Damehood, and Mark Apsey and tions, then a ballot of all  eligible
Adisa Azapagic have been awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). members will commence in April.  
Gladden has been recognised for her services to academic and industrial research Successful candidates will take
in chemical engineering. She is the Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering at up their  positions  with effect from
the University of Cambridge and Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical the end of IChemE’s Annual General
Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). She also volunteered as a Trustee for IChemE from Meeting on 15 June 2020. 
2015–2018. All documentation, including
Her work involves developing magnetic resonance imaging techniques for use in role profiles, codes  of  conduct,  and
chemical engineering research. This includes developing a better understanding of details on how to nominate, is avail-
multi-component adsorption, diffusion, flow and reaction processes. able at www.icheme.org/elections.  
Apsey was awarded an MBE for his services to sustainable energy and energy
efficiency. He is Director at Ameresco, where he leads teams focussed on helping
organisations identify and implement energy efficiency and renewable projects across
sectors.
He is a founding Board member and the current Chair of the IChemE Energy
Centre, where he led the Centre’s Energy and Resource Efficiency (ERE) task group.
“It is a huge surprise and honour to be recognised for services to sustainable energy
in the Queen’s New Year Honours List 2020,” said Apsey. “I am grateful to everyone I
have worked with so far on this journey. We have so much more to do and I take inspi-
ration from this award to continue working hard to do everything we can to protect the
life support systems of our single shared planet.”
Azapagic was awarded an MBE for her services to sustainability and carbon foot-
printing. She is Professor of Sustainable Chemical Engineering at the University of
Manchester. She has been an active volunteer for IChemE’s sustainability and univer-
sity accreditation work and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Sustainable Production
and Consumption.
“I’m pleased that my contribution to sustainability has been honoured by an MBE,”
said Azapagic. “I see it as a recognition of not only my work but also of the invaluable
contribution of my colleagues and students who work hard to make chemical engi-
neering more sustainable.”

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 58

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 news icheme

people
people
IChemE Trustee appointed CEO of Foo granted Fellow-
C-Capture ship by Academy of
Sciences Malaysia
TOM White, Vice President Regions on IChemE’s Board of Trustees, has been appointed
CEO of clean energy technology company C-Capture. ICHEME Fellow Dominic Foo has been
C-Capture is producing an environmentally friendly solvent for use in CCS, and is testing its made a Fellow of the Academy of
technology at the carbon capture demonstration project at Drax power station in Yorkshire, UK. Sciences Malaysia (ASM).
White has worked for engineering and project management firms Jacobs, WorleyParsons, The Fellowship recognises the
AmecFosterWheeler and Parsons International. Prior to joining C-Capture, he was CEO of Badr nation’s eminent scientists, engi-
Enhanced Oil Recovery, an oilfield services company based in Oman. White said he is incredibly neers, and technologists for their
excited to be joining C-Capture at what he described as a pivotal time. stellar performance in their respec-
“The time for large-scale deployment of CCS is now, and C-Capture’s solution represents a tive fields. Foo is Professor of
step change in performance to existing technologies”, he said. Process Design and Integration at the
C-Capture’s Chairman, Tristan Fischer, said: “Tom’s expertise in chemical engineering University of Nottingham Malaysia
perfectly complements the development of C-Capture’s technology and the strength of Tom’s and his main research area is process
business development expertise will help in C-Capture’s rapid expansion.” integration.
Foo was one of 27 granted the
title ASM Fellow by Malaysia’s
Deputy Minister of Energy, Sci-
learned society ence, Technology, Environment and
Climate Change, YB Puan Isnaraissah
LSC member quits over climate change concerns Munirah Majilis at a ceremony held in
December.
TOM BAXTER has resigned from IChemE’s Learned Society Committee (LSC) because he Foo said: “I am very honoured to be
feels the Institution’s position on climate change is too weak. In response, LSC Chair appointed as an ASM Fellow, as it is
Jarka Glassey has said that IChemE is materially taking action to help members address one of the most important achieve-
climate change, and that a formal position formed through wider consultation with ments, being a Malaysian researcher.
members will take time to develop. The committee was formed in July last year to pro- For a country that has a relatively
vide strategic direction to IChemE’s technical priorities. In December, after receiving weak research environment, it can
updates on a meeting he was unable to attend, Baxter resigned from the group. He voiced be very challenging to carry out cut-
“dismay” that there is no explicit mention of climate change in IChemE’s Strategy 2024; ting edge research in almost all
and that the committee has decided that climate change should sit within a broader area areas. I should thank all my research
of focus called “responsible production” rather than making it the central priority. collaborators who have been work-
Glassey said: “IChemE is committed to activities that will contribute to combating ing closely with me in the past two
climate change”, and pointed to a number of outputs from members, including the pub- decades in developing various process
lication of efficiency guides by the Energy Centre and action plans developed on behalf of integration solutions for the process
government to progress carbon capture and storage. industry.”
Glassey noted that she would be concerned if IChemE’s position on climate change was
dictated to members rather than created through consultation with them. This will occur
this year, updating the IChemE Energy Centre’s position established in 2014.
Baxter, whose LSC manifesto focussed on communicating the role of chemical
engineers in decarbonisation, said he will continue to help address climate change and is
advising companies on how they can manage greenhouse gases.
“My time is better spent there at the moment,” he said.
Baxter also called for IChemE to offer more practical guidance to practising chemical
engineers. Glassey noted that the LSC had already begun work on this and that help from
the wider community is needed to ensure the views presented are well balanced and based
on recognised capability. Glassey called for more members to lend their knowhow, includ-
foo (right): presented with his Fellow-
ing through IChemE’s special interest groups.
ship at a ceremony in December 2019
For full coverage of this story, visit: https://bit.ly/3alhP5W

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 book review
Petroleum Refining, Design
and Applications Handbook
A KAYODE COKER
ISBN: 9781118233696; WILEY-SCRIVENER; 2018;
EBOOK £200.99; HARDCOVER, £223.00
A
COMPENDIUM of refining processes of monumen-
tal proportions, written by an author whose surname
I guess meant he was destined to write a book on
refining processes. This book contains pretty much every-
thing you could want to know about conventional oil refining.
It’s a one-stop-shop for those wishing to gain an in-depth
understanding of the fundamentals of each key fuels refining
process.
The book starts with an overview of key properties of
crude oil and refined products, then moves on to detailed
descriptions of each major refinery process, including crude
distillation, fluid catalytic cracking, and coking. (Coker covers
coking processes and describes coker units very clearly and
comprehensively in Chapter six.)
For each major process there is a wealth of detail describ-
ing the function of the process and how it fits into the
overall refinery. The key chemical reactions occurring are
described, helping the reader to clearly understand how the
hydrocarbon components present within crude oil are modified,
and the reason modifications are necessary to produce useful
products is explained.
There is an impressive collection of kinetic and thermodynamic
detail drawn from a great wealth of references. This provides
useful information to enable design calculations to be done by
those wishing to design a new unit or rate an existing one.
Additionally, the book touches on many important oper-
ational aspects of refining such as safety and environmental
considerations, new technologies, and troubleshooting tech-
niques. Although not a comprehensive data source for these
operational considerations it provides examples that give
a good flavour for the day-to-day challenges that refiners
can face.
However, there is some level of inconsistency as to which
operational considerations are discussed chapter to chapter.
For example there is a discussion regarding health, safety, and
environmental considerations for distillation, hydroprocessing
and fluid catalytic cracking processes, but not for reforming
and gas-treating processes.
Similarly, troubleshooting sections are included for some
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 60
bookreview DG.indd 60
Summary
A COMPREHENSIVE COMPENDIUM OF
FUELS REFINING PROCESSES, CHEMISTRY
AND THERMODYNAMICS TO BENEFIT
ENGINEERS WITH A WORKING KNOWLEDGE
OF OIL REFINING AND LOOKING TO DEEPEN
THEIR UNDERSTANDING. OVERALL A
VERY FINE TECHNICAL REFERENCE BOOK
AND WELL RECOMMENDED
but not all processes.
And, what else isn’t in scope?
The main refining process category that is not described is
lubes basestock production, something that is relevant to about
15% of the global refinery population.
Additionally, sustainability is not a strong theme and
emerging processes such as production of fuels products from
bio-component feedstock and carbon capture technologies are
not covered. Given global sustainability goals, I think these are
areas the book should have covered.
This is a serious book, with a richness and depth of tech-
nical detail, which I’d recommend to engineers who already
have some working knowledge of refining processes and are
looking to gain a greater depth of knowledge and/or for a useful
and comprehensive design reference guide. It would also be
an excellent choice as a university reference book – for those
studying refining processes as part of a chemical engineering
degree – and as a resource in the library of refining operators
and design contractors.
As a Refining Technical Specialist, I have found this book to
be a very useful reference which has provided me with insights
about some different processes that I was not aware of. When
I have a future need to find some information regarding a
process I will certainly count this amongst my key reference
sources. I also intend to update training material that I deliver
to cover some of the theory described in this book that I have
not encountered within in-house data sources.
Review by Matthew Bennett CEng, MIChemE, Refining Process
Technology Specialist, ExxonMobil
22/01/2020 15:51
 The Chemical Engineer events & courses
FOR FULL LISTS VISIT WWW.ICHEME.ORG/EVENTS AND WWW.ICHEME.ORG/COURSES
UK & EUROPE
Get Chartered
Manchester, uk, 5 February
Professional development event for chemical
engineers aimed at supporting students,
young professionals and experienced
(but not yet chartered) engineers on the
requirements for Chartered Chemical
Engineer and CEng registrations.
www.icheme.org/mmg-chartered20
2020 Pub Quiz
Aberdeen, uk, 5 February
Members group social event.
www.icheme.org/aberdeen-quiz-2020
Professional Development in Engineering
Aberdeen, uk, 25 February
Members group technical talk.
www.icheme.org/amg-prof-dev
All Ireland Members Group Annual Dinner
Cork, Ireland, 5 March
Annual Members Group Dinner.
www.icheme.org/aimg-annualdinner20
Disastrous Dinners: Effects of Minor Changes
Edinburgh, uk, 24 March
Discussion of the Chevron refinery explosion
followed by drinks and dinner.
www.icheme.org/disastrous-dinners-emc
ONLINE EVENTS
Overcoming Cultural Barriers in
Digital Transformation in the Process
Industries to Improve Productivity
11 February
Process Management and Control Special
Interest Group event. The presentation
will introduce the many interlinked
aspects of digital transformation. IT, OT,
ET and IIoT will be touched upon. It will
define minimum digital foundation for
digital transformation. As human factors
are limiting digital transformation, we
will discuss in more detail how it can be
perceived by individuals and groups.
www.icheme.org/
digital-transformation-webinar
Mixing in Sludge Treatment
13 February
The third of Mick Dawson’s (BHR Group)
three webinar presentations,
this time on sludge mixing.
www.icheme.org/mick-dawson-3
FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 61
diary 944 DG.indd 61
ChemEngDayUK 2020
Bradford, uk, 7–8 April
Research staff and students
from UK universities and industrial
collaborators will discuss developments
and innovations in their fields of work.
www.bradford.ac.uk/ei/
chemical-engineering/chemengdayuk2020
Hazards 30
Manchester, uk,18–20 May
Hazards 30 is IChemE’s annual process
safety conference, the leading event of its
kind in Europe. It will explore every major
aspect of process safety, sharing good
practice, new techniques and approaches, and
lessons learned from past incidents and
near-misses. Hazards is an international,
industry-focussed event, and attracts
practitioners from all over the world.
www.icheme.org/hazards30
2nd International Conference on
Sustainable Production and
Consumption
Edinburgh, uk, 24–25 June
Building on the success of the inaugural
Conference on Sustainable Production and
Consumption, this conference will provide
a platform for high-quality papers on
sustainable production and consumption,
COURSES
United Kingdom
HAZOP Study for Team Leaders
and Team Members
25–27 February, Rugby
https://bit.ly/2tyb5kV
IChemE Forms of Contract
3–4 March, Rugby
www.icheme.org/forms-of-contract
What Engineers Need to Know
About Contracts
9–10 March, Rugby
www.icheme.org/contracts
Pressure Relief
10–12 March, Liverpool
www.abb.com/uk/consulting/training
HAZOP Leadership and Management
17–19 March, Rugby
https://bit.ly/30OL6BF
Control and Operation of Centrifugal
Gas Compressors
18–20 March, Aberdeen
www.esd-simulation.com/courses
aiming to explore multidimensional
interactions between technology, the
environment, economy, society and policy.
www.icheme.org/spc20
AUSTRALASIA
Chemeca 2020
Brisbane, Australia, 27–30 September
The 49th Chemeca will be held in Brisbane
from 27-30 September 2020. Chemeca brings
together chemical engineers who share
their insights and innovations relevant to
the wide range of industries we work in. As
our diverse chemical engineering profession
looks around and forward, this conference
seeks to ensure chemical engineers and
industrial chemists in our combined roles
throughout industry, government, academia
and our professional institutions are aware
that how we pursue progress and change is
just as important as what we pursue. The
committee encourages papers that explore the
emerging opportunities and challenges for the
chemical engineering profession and process
industries throughout Australia, New Zealand
and beyond. Our plenary, keynote and other
invited speakers have been specially selected
to challenge our thinking and bring a global
perspective to this discussion.
www.chemeca2020.org
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 RESIDuE the STUFF LEFT OVER AT THE END

no
To boldly go where
fore
LEGO has gone be do with your LE
GO
If you need new
ideas for what to
not just for child
ren an d it is pe rfe ctl y Waiter, there’s
(because LEGO is s all ov er
a robot in
d LE GO set
ve minifigures an
acceptable to ha ght about cooling
it
en ha ve yo u th ou
yo ur ho us e), th wh at
dge? That’s
to really low tem
researchers at La
peratures in a fri
ncaster Unive rsity, UK , did in order to my cereal
computing.
useful for quantum
test if it could be r block s inside a
Have you been
staring into
nifigure and fou
They placed a mi to -273.15 C,
o your bowl of cer
eal in the
ref rig era tor and cooled them mornings?
dilution e absolute zero. Th
ey Perhaps it’s
millidegrees abov
which is just 1.6 ce fro m th e top of thbecause the cof
e fee hasn’t
asu red th e th ermal conductan kicked in yet and yo
uld
me ing that LEGO wo u’re just
the bottom, show
stack of brick s to cryogenic tempe
staring blank ly, or
ra- perhaps
al insulator at
make a good therm essential to iso you’re a morning
lat e person
al conductiv ity is
tures. A low therm for use in dil utiwho noticed that
on when you
onents, such as
cryogenic comp an tum computing.
near the end of the
bowl the
selves or for qu
refrigerators them r thermal isola-
remaining floati
ng pieces
s prov ided bette
The LEGO block clump together.
e
and LEGO has th This is
tional materials,
tion than conven GO is ma de know n as the Cheer
fro m ios effect,
much cheaper. LE
advantage of being plastic and the
after the break fas
t cereal, and
tad ien e Sty rene (A BS)
Acrylonitrile Bu more sophist ica
some morning pe
ted ople have now
rk ing on creating
team is now wo direct ly measured
the effect for
3D print ing.
ABS structures via temperature of
the first time.
o surv ived the
The cryonaut als The Cheerios effect
st minifigure. is a fluid dy namics
it the world’s coole
0.004 K, making phenomenon tha
t makes Cheerios
together in the cen clump
tre or around the
rather than dispe edges of a bowl
rsing evenly. The
forces that cause
act ion bet ween gra this – the inter-
vit y and surface ten
never proven. Brown sion – have been
modelled but
University researche
bowl equipped wi rs used a custom-b
th magnetic capabi uilt cereal
art ificial Cheerios. lities to measure
The two plastic Ch the forces on
placed in a small tub eerios, one with a
magnet, were
of water. Electrica
Cheerio while the oth l coils tugged on the
er Cheerio stayed in magnetic
then used to measu place. The magneti
re the attractive for c field was
the Cheerios as the ce. They found tha
y neared each oth t the tilt of
er was important
ity

that hadn’t been inc – a parameter

luded in the model
Lancaster Univers

s.
So how does a fai
rly innocuous bowl
of cereal lead to the
itable robot takeov inev-
er? According to
a better understa the res ear che rs,
nding of surface
tension and fluid
dy namics could
allow the develo

inner
pment of small

Rubbish boardgame w
spider-like robots
that could move acr
of water. These cou oss the surface
ld have application
s in environ-
ty of Manches- mental monitoring
d Mi kh ail Ab eri lla at the Universi .
Jhu t issue’s Residue.
Congratulations to nomy Game from las
There’s no escape…
eaway of the Bioeco
ter who won the giv Focus Games to cha llen ge pla yer s to
e was developed by
The educat ional gam ar economy.
ilit y and the cir cul
think about sustainab

FEBRUARY 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 64

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