october 2020 Issue 952

The Chemical Engineer

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 The Chemical Engineer
Contents, Issue 952
october 2020

20 26

38 rules of thumb
VMIC

44 52 Stephen Hall offers practical insights

on tanks and vessels

40 food & DRINK

Tony Hasting on cleaning and
disinfection of food process plant

44 safety
Marc Reid explains why a long-term
moral perspective is needed when it
comes to process safety

48 oil & GAS

Ashley Hynds looks at the common

News Features areas of weakness emerging from the

inspection of offshore audit systems
3 Editor’s comment 20 instrumentation
Adam Duckett on the opportunity to John de Mello on how to get started
52 pharma
Chris Lucas talks to Adam Duckett
boost your skills with building your own scientific
about accelerating the UK’s vaccine
instruments
manufacturing capability for Covid-19
4 News: in numbers
26 careers 56 learned society
6 News: in brief John Wilson speaks to Pasha Khan,
Alexandra Meldrum on IChemE’s
Jack Muirhead and Emma Markwell
digitalisation project
8 News: in depth about the benefits they gained during
Emissions have peaked, reports DNV their industrial placements
GL; UK Government responds to Regulars
CCUS business model consultation; 29 viewpoint
Consultation opens on Victoria reg- Kelly Paul shares her views on tack- 58 book review
istration scheme; Hitachi withdraws ling unconscious bias
60 NEWS: IChemE
from UK nuclear new-build plans
32 heat transfer 61 letters
14 News: round-up David Wong and colleagues on using
62 training and events
aluminium smelters to flexibly
18 News: R&D balance power demand on the grid 64 Residue

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 1

contentswithpicsagain DG.indd 1 24/09/2020 16:31

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 The Chemical Engineer
Editor’s comment
Skill Up
adam duckett
M
ANY of us are using the pandemic as an opportunity
to throw ourselves into new hobbies and develop new
skills. Readers told us earlier this year that they had
been using online platforms for training, studying courses inside
and outside of engineering, working towards getting Chartered,
learning new languages, and dusting off that untuned banjo.
This issue, John de Mello, Director of Nanoscience at the Nor-
wegian University of Science and Technology, introduces us to the
world of open hardware, and provides some top tips and links to
online resources for those engineers keen to delve into the world of
“build your own instrumentation”. It is an excellent opportunity for
engineers to develop new skills, contribute to a burgeoning maker
community and done right, save cash during these straitened times
(p20).
Continuing the skills theme, John Wilson introduces the first
of a new three-part series investigating industrial placements
and the advantages to individuals and employers. The first instal-
ment features insights on how John’s own placement shaped his
career choices, and he speaks to three recent graduates about the
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 3
catalyst952 DG.indd 3
benefits they gained and how industrial experience has improved
their employability (p26).
Once a year we send readers a survey and ask them what additional
content or topics they would like to see covered in the magazine. In
the last survey, skills and careers was a recurring request. Please do
visit the website and select “careers” in the Browse by Tags section
to find more articles.
Also, many of you requested more practical and technical con-
tent. With this in mind we’re launching a new series called Rules
of Thumb that provides short practical insights into on-the-job
problems (p38). Stephen Hall, author of the book with the same
name, has kindly agreed to share a lesson in each of our coming
issues.
Safety is also a hot button issue among readers. Ashley Hynds of
the HSE shares the common weaknesses that emerge from inspec-
tions of offshore operators’ audit and assurance systems (p48). And
Marc Reid offers a moving personal insight on the toll that Piper
Alpha had on his father, and challenges the community to take a
long-term moral perspective on process safety (p44).
If there are topics that you would like us to consider including in
future issues, please keep an eye out for a coming email asking you
to fill in our annual survey. This will arrive early October and as ever,
we are keen to hear your thoughts and requests.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading the latest issue.
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.
24/09/2020 16:29
 News
IN NUMBERS
Chemical sales were in decline before pandemic
ICIS has released its latest Top 100 listing of chemical companies,
looking at their financial performance in 2019. Most companies in the
jurong island: roof-top top 100 had sales and profits decline due to a combination of a drop in
solar on the way chemicals demand, a weak global economic environment, and lower oil
prices. The top 100 had a combined revenue of more than US$1 trn,
down 4.9% on 2018. The data showed that 34 of the 100 reported
a fall in sales of more than 10%. Operating profit fell by 17.4% on
average for the top 100. Capital spending rose 9.4% and the average
increase in R&D spending was 2.1%.

The top fiVE for 2019

2019 sales % change from 2018 sales
1. BASF US$66.69m -1.5%

2. Sinopec US$63.24m -6.9%

3. Dow US$42.95m -13.4%

4. LyondellBasell US$34.73m -11%

5. SABIC US$32.49m -19%

Separately, Cefic has released a chemical quarterly report for the EU for
January to June, showing that chemical output dropped 5.2% this year
compared to 2019 due to the pandemic. However, there are signs of
Singapore LNG terminal
recovery, with June having 2.9% output growth compared to May.
gets solar panels
Singapore LNG Corporation
(SLNG) and Total Solar Distributed
Generation (DG) have signed an
Oil firms downgrade assets
agreement to build a 600 kWp Seven of the world’s largest oil companies have
rooftop solar system on the roofs of downgraded the value of their oil and gas assets
several buildings at the Singapore by a combined US$87bn in the last three
LNG terminal on Jurong Island. financial quarters, according to an analysis by
The installation is expected Carbon Tracker. A downward trend had started
to be completed by the before the pandemic, with Chevron writing down
fourth quarter of 2020. asset values by US$13bn in the last quarter of
It is part of SNLG’s Green Strategy 2019. However, in the second quarter of 2020
and will generate 800 MWh alone, a total of US$55bn was written off
of renewable energy, equivalent to assets by Shell, BP, Total, Chevron, Repsol, Eni
avoiding 300 t/y of and Equinor. Carbon Tracker’s analysis expects the
CO2 emissions. downward trend to continue.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 4

numbers952 DG.indd 4 24/09/2020 14:45

 news in numbers
LEGO increases
sustainability funding
LEGO is investing US$400m over three years
in its Sustainable Materials Programme. It aims to
accelerate efforts to develop sustainable materials as
well as social responsibility initiatives.
LEGO made a commitment in 2015 to make its
products from sustainable materials by 2030 and
bio-bricks currently account for 2% of bricks. It is
phasing out single-use plastic bags used to package
loose bricks, as part of its initiative to make all of
its packaging sustainable by the end of 2025.
Recyclable paper bags will be trialled from 2021.
Manufacturing operations will be carbon neutral by
2022 by using additional solar panels on factories
and improving energy efficiency. It also aims not to
divert any waste to landfill by 2025 and to decrease
its water use by 10% by 2022.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 5
numbers952 DG.indd 5
6,520
offshore
wind turbines
needed by
2040
Energy technology build rate needs to
increase to reach UK net zero target
Atkins has calculated the build rate for the UK to reach its
target of net zero emissions by 2050 under the scenario
from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). In the next
30 years, the UK needs to build 8 natural gas units, 66
biomass facilities, 6 nuclear power stations, and 6,520
offshore wind turbines. An undefined unit number for
20 GW of onshore wind, 80 GW of solar, and
15–30 GW of energy storage will also be needed.
The UK is currently at 43% of this build rate.
David Cole, Market Director for Power Generation Assets,
Nuclear and Power at Atkins, said: “We must replace
almost all our current generating capacity and build as
much again, and to put this into context, the highest we’ve
reached was 6 GW in 2012 of gas and renewables
infrastructure. The longer we wait, the higher these
numbers will rise.”
Shifting to industrial autonomy
A survey by Yokogawa found that 64% of process
industry companies anticipate fully autonomous
operations by 2030. The survey was conducted in
June and July with more than 500 decision makers
in process industries around the world. 30% of
companies will begin autonomous operations in the next
three years, 34% are piloting semi-autonomous
operations, 30% have implemented autonomous
operations, and 7% have no plans to do so. The
pandemic is driving investments in autonomy, with 54%
of respondents saying they will increase investment over
the next three years due to Covid-19.
24/09/2020 14:45
 NEWS IN BRIEF

and cleanup will begin once it is safe to

do so.

Another fire breaks

out at Beirut port
A FIRE broke out at a warehouse in the
port of Beirut, Lebanon, on 10 September,
just over a month after an ammonium
nitrate explosion at the port killed around
200 people and injured around 6,000.
It was reported that the fire started
in a warehouse that contained tyres
and cooking oil. The cause of the fire is
unknown. Local media showed a large
pillar of black smoke rising from the
warehouse, which was damaged dur-
ing the ammonium nitrate explosion on
Partnership to accelerate plastic 4 August.
No injuries were reported, and the fire
waste elimination was contained in one area and extin-
guished after a day, according to Reuters.
PACKAGING company Sealed Air has announced a partnership with advanced
recycling technology company Plastic Energy. Additionally, Sealed Air has
invested US$2.5m in Plastic Energy’s parent company, Plastic Energy Global. Jacobs selected to
Plastic Energy converts post-consumer plastic waste into new recycled oil which
can be used as a resource that can create essential packaging, and has a goal to
build nuclear testing
process 300,000 t of plastic by 2025. Sealed Air sells packaging for food, consumer facility
and industrial products, and for medical use, including polyethylene foams and
flexible films. MOLTEX Energy, a nuclear energy
Plastic Energy will accept Sealed Air scrap to use as feedstock, furthering Sealed company, has selected Jacobs to build
Air’s efforts to access recycled resins. The recycling technology company will a bespoke experimental facility for
also work to alter its process to accept a greater amount of Sealed Air products. thermal transfer testing at its Birchwood
Meanwhile, Sealed Air will work to develop products that are more compatible with Park R&D site in the UK. The facility
Plastic Energy’s process. will support development of stable salt
The companies intend to demonstrate the commercial and technical viability of reactors (SSRs), a type of nuclear plant
circular loops for flexible plastic packaging. offering safer, cheaper, and cleaner
power.
Moltex’s SSR is designed to generate
low-cost electricity by burning processed
Explosion at Florida Bay Fire Department reported that the spent-fuel pellets that would otherwise

chemical facility explosion occurred in an area storing

AN explosion occurred at a chemical
facility in Florida, US, on 8 September
in a storage area for an isopropyl
alcohol-based solution.
The explosion occurred at the FAR
Chemical facility in Palm Bay at a
materials storage pad containing flam-
mable materials. The fire then spread
to an adjacent building, according to a
statement from the company. The Palm
30–40 barrels, each containing 227 L of
an isopropyl alcohol-based solution.
There were no injuries and the fire
was contained within an hour. While
a large plume of smoke was visible,
hazmat teams said that it was non-toxic.
The facility produces a range of
chemical compounds including phar-
maceutical reagents, and advanced
polymers and catalysts. According to FAR
Chemical, the plant will remain closed,
have to be stored as radioactive waste.
SSR technology is a variant of molten
salt reactor (MSR) technology, which is a
class of fission reactors which use molten
fluoride salts as the primary coolant, at
low pressure.
In comparison to conventional nuclear
designs, SSR designs incorporate safety
intrinsically. Moltex’s system operates
at atmospheric pressure, and the
byproducts are inert salts, ensuring that
the explosive release of radioactive gas

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 6

NIB952 DG.indd 6 24/09/2020 14:22


into the atmosphere is not a possibil-
ity. Additionally, core reactivity slows as
temperature increases so meltdowns are
also avoided.
Jacobs will additionally assist with
validation of thermal transfer modelling
by creating a technically complex simula-
tion to replicate the heat output of a fuel
channel and to validate computational
fluid dynamics modelling of thermal
transfer across the fuel assemblies into
the coolant.
Malaysia speciality
chemicals deal
PETRONAS Chemicals Group (PCG) and
German chemicals and energy company
PCC have signed a shares sale and pur-
chase agreement for PCG to acquire a
50% stake in PCC’s Malaysian subsidiary,
PCC Oxyalkylates Malaysia (PCC-OM).
The partnership will help PCG develop
its speciality chemical business seg-
ment, while allowing PCC to expand into
the Asian market. PCG and PCC will build
an oxyalkylates facility within the Kertih
Integrated Petrochemical Complex,
Terengganu. The facility will produce
ethoxylates and polyether polyols. Con-
struction is due to begin in 2021, with
artist’s impression: a Moltex
Energy power plant
Moltex Energy
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 7
NIB952 DG.indd 7
NEWS IN BRIEF
production starting in 2023. An R&D
centre will also be established at PCC-OM.
Wood secures Equinor
contract
WOOD has secured a US$42m contract
from Equinor to provide engineering,
procurement, construction, and instal-
lation (EPCI) services at the Kollsnes gas
processing plant in Øygarden, Norway.
The facility is operated by Gassco
with Equinor being the technical services
provider, and it processes gas from the
Troll, Kvitebjørn,Visund and Fram fields.
Wood’s contract includes extending the
fourth monoethylene glycol (MEG) train
at the plant, as part of the Kollsnes MEG
Upgrade (KMU) project. The FEED study
was completed in 2019 and the KMU
project is due to be completed in 2023.
Lars Fredrik Bakke, Wood’s Senior
Vice President in Norway, said: “Deliv-
ering the MEG upgrade at the Kollsnes
process plant allows us to leverage our
market-leading expertise in downstream
processing to support Equinor’s tech-
nical operations of this critical piece of
onshore energy infrastructure, through
which 40% of all Norwegian gas export
flows.”
Online only
Witness to the Beirut
blast
Safety expert Wassim Naddi speaks
about his experience witnessing the
tragic ammonium nitrate explosion
in Beirut on 4 August. He also speaks
about Lebanon’s general disregard
for safety and the need for change.
https://bit.ly/32XQTrx
Webinar on design of
experiments (DoE)
The Chemical Engineer hosted a
webinar on the importance of DoE
within chemical engineering. The
presenters discussed why chemical
engineers should learn DoE, how to
get started, potential problems, best
practices for teaching, and collabo-
ration opportunities.
https://bit.ly/3kBqzJE
Chemeca plenary speakers
share thoughts
In this IChemE blog, Bronwyn
Evans, Chief Executive of Engineers
Australia, and IChemE Deputy Pres-
ident, Jane Cutler, speak ahead of
their plenary lectures at Chemeca
about how chemical engineers need
to adapt to the current challenges.
https://bit.ly/3i2FevE
New IChemE video series
In the first video of IChemE’s
new Insight video series, IChemE
Trustree Wendy Wilson gives an
overview of the new IT tools and
systems being introduced to support
members with online collaboration.
https://youtu.be/OsVoNC72Zj4
24/09/2020 14:22

climate crisis
Emissions have peaked, but green
transition must pick up pace
World on track to exhaust remaining CO2 budget by 2028
ENERGY-RELATED CO2 emissions have
peaked due to the pandemic, but the
world is still on track to exhaust the
remaining CO2 budget by 2028, accord-
ing to DNV GL’s 2020 Energy Transition
Outlook.
The fourth annual outlook from
DNV GL is a forecast of how the energy
transition up to 2050 will take place,
based on current trends. A key area of
focus in the 2020 outlook is the influ-
ence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Energy-related emissions
have peaked
The pandemic has caused an 8% drop in
energy demand this year. Recovery will
be slow and behavioural shifts such as
home working will have a lasting effect.
The outlook calculates that
demand will be 6–8% lower each year
to 2050 compared to what it would have
been if the pandemic hadn’t happened.
DNV GL. Historical data source: IEA WEB (2019)
Figure 1: The impact of the pandemic on energy demand
500
400
300
EJ/y
200
100
0 industry.
1980 1990 2000
NID1 DG.indd 8
NEWS in depth
Global energy demand will peak in 2034
at only 4% higher than current levels
and will then decline gradually.
The drop in energy demand will be
partially due to increased electrification
such as the switch to electric vehicles,
and also increased energy efficiency.
Electrification makes up less than 20%
of the energy mix today, but will almost
double by 2050.
Despite energy demand not peaking
until 2034, emissions from energy will
not continue to rise, partially due to
the growing share of renewables in the
energy mix. Emissions are expected
to be 8% lower this year due to the
pandemic, resulting in energy emissions
likely having peaked in 2019. This brings
peak energy emissions forward by five
years compared to the previous forecast.
energy There will be some lasting effects of
the pandemic in sectors such as air
travel, and this will result in 75bn t less
CO2 emitted by 2050. However, this drop
NO COVID-19
BASE
2010 2020 2030 2040 2050
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 8
in emissions is not significant enough
to help meet the Paris Agreement goals,
and a similar drop in emissions would
need to occur every year to 2050 to meet
the 1.5oC target.
“Clearly that is not sustainable,” said
Remi Eriksen, CEO of DNV GL, at the
launch of the Outlook. “Emissions reduc-
tions this year have come at enormous
cost in lives and livelihoods. We can’t
empty the airliners twice, so how can we
get further emissions cuts in the future?
There really is an enormous challenge
ahead to find ways to decarbonise that
are economically sustainable and make a
positive social impact.”
Oil demand will fall
Oil demand is expected to reduce by 13%
for 2020, leading to 2019 being the most
likely peak for oil. Oil demand would
have peaked in 2023 and declined grad-
ually if it wasn’t for the pandemic. This
broadly agrees with this year’s BP Energy
Outlook, which models three differ-
ent potential scenarios. Only under its
“business as usual” scenario would oil
demand plateau in the early 2020s and
decline slightly to 2050. In its “rapid”
and “net zero” scenarios, oil demand
does not recover from the impact of the
pandemic, instead falling by 50% and
80% by 2050 respectively.
The DNV GL report notes that
concerns about employment will likely
extend pro-extraction policies, however
in the longer-term, skill sets and exper-
tise will be transferred to other areas in
Coal peaked in 2014, and coal use in
2050 will be less than a third of current
24/09/2020 14:33

levels, despite the rise for coal demand
in India and a flattening of coal use in
China.
Natural gas will become the largest
source of primary energy in 2026,
peaking in 2035. Decarbonisation of
gas through measures such as carbon
capture and storage (CCS) will be slow,
with only 13% of gas decarbonised by
2050. Hydrogen production will
dominated by steam methane reforming
until 2035.
In 2018, around 8% of global fossil
fuel supplies were used for non-energy
purposes, with petrochemicals being
the largest consumer of fossil fuel feed-
stocks. Around 45% of these feedstocks
were used to produce plastic in 2018, and
this is expected to rise to 60% by 2050.
Plastics demand will continue to grow,
but the rate of recycling will grow faster,
improving from 13% to 47% by 2050.
The use of fossil fuels as a feed-
stock will peak in 2033 before declining
rapidly. Oil will continue to dominate as
a fossil feedstock, accounting for around
50% of the feedstock mix by 2050.
Bio-based feedstocks will only become
a competitor in the long term, and only
with strong policy support.
Wind and solar power will provide
24% of the world’s electricity in 2030
and 62% in 2050, with solar PV capacity
growing 20-fold and wind 10-fold.
Speaking at the launch, Peter Raftery,
Global Head of Technical and Commer-
cial Asset Management at Blackrock,
commented that the growth of renew-
able energy was really the “low hanging
fruit” in terms of decarbonisation, and
areas like shipping and long-distance
transport will be harder to tackle.
He pointed out that even in electricity
generation, renewables have a long way
to go.
He gave an example from
morning, where 10 GW of natural
gas-fired power was switched on at the
Great Britain power grid over a two-hour
period to cope with the daily ramp up
in demand. “Renewable energy has
got some distance to go before we can
replace that type of flexibility, but that
is the next challenge.”
NID1 DG.indd 9
NEWS in depth
Figure 2: Despite being past peak emissions, the 1.5o C carbon budget will still be exhausted
by 2028
50
1.5ºC CARBON BUDGET
40
be
30
GtCO2/y
20
10
0
2020
World on track for 2.3 C warming o
Even with a drop in emissions, growth
in renewables, improved energy effi-
ciency, and increased electrification,
decarbonisation is not happening fast
enough. According to the Outlook, the
world is currently on track to exceed
the 1.5oC carbon budget by 2028, and
the 2oC budget by 2051, only reaching
net zero emissions by the end of the
century. At that time, temperatures will
have increased 2.3oC from pre-industrial
levels.
the world is currently on
track to exceed the 1.5 o C
carbon budget by 2028, and
the 2 o C budget by 2051, only
reaching net zero emissions by
the end of the century
that
“That level of warming is considered
dangerous by the world’s
community,” said Eriksen. “For the sake
of future generations and the wellness
of our planet, we must have a faster
transition.”
He said that while it is not known
exactly what impact the level of warming
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 9
DNV GL
2ºC CARBON BUDGET
1.5ºC BUDGET EXHAUSTED 2028 2ºC BUDGET EXHAUSTED 2051
2030 2040 2050
will have, the effects such as sea level
rises, droughts, wildfires, and flooding
will lead to billions of people not being
able to live where they live today.
Getting on the right track
The report says that the Paris Agree-
ment goals can be reached with existing
technology at sufficient scale.
Under the current trajectory, the
uptake of CCS will be limited and
it will only accelerate in the 2040s,
capturing 11% of energy-related
emissions by 2050.
A strong policy push is needed to
drive down prices of existing solutions
and therefore drive decarbonisation.
Claire O’Neill, Managing Director
for Climate and Energy at the World
Business Council for Sustainable Devel-
opment, noted at the report’s launch
that there is always talk about national
scientific governments leading on policy, but that
we don’t focus enough on local govern-
ments such as those in cities, states, and
regions. She said that in the UK, local
politicians have more power to imple-
ment changes such as local energy
schemes. APD
24/09/2020 14:33
 NEWS in depth

environment

Government publishes response to

CCUS business model consultation
Decade will be ‘critical’ for CCUS to move from planning to operation

THE UK Government has published
its response to a 2019 consultation on
business models for carbon capture,
usage, and storage (CCUS). The response
sets out progress made on business
models to incentivise CCUS and the new
carbon capture and storage (CCS) infra-
structure fund announced in the UK’s
spring budget.
The CCUS consultation ran from 22
July to 16 September last year. The recent
response by Government summarises
consultation feedback received and the
Government’s view on potential CCUS
business models for industry, power,
carbon dioxide (CO2) transport and
storage, and action needed on low-carbon
hydrogen production to enable CCUS
deployment in the 2020s, including a
CCUS delivery action plan; and objectives
and principles for CCUS deployment.
The Government’s response to the
consultation comprises six sections,
including deploying CCUS in the 2020s,
and industrial CCUS.
Deploying CCUS in the 2020s and
the CCS Infrastructure Fund
According to Government, CCUS is to
play a significant role in a net zero world,
particularly in supporting decarbonisa-
tion of industry and power, producing
low-carbon hydrogen, and greenhouse
gas removal technologies. Furthermore,
it states that this decade will be critical
for CCUS, and that during the period the
public and private sectors need to tran-
sition from planning to the operational
delivery of the UK’s first CCUS clusters.
In June, the UK Committee on Climate
Change (CCC) published a progress
report on reducing UK emissions. The CCC
was established to advise Government on
climate change targets. In the June report,
the CCC noted the importance of CCS in
achieving net zero, adding that signifi-
cant progress is required in the 2020s to
get on track to meet the target by 2050.
To achieve the needed transition into
operational delivery over 2020 and 2021,
the Government has developed an action
plan. The current proposal is as follows:
• Develop commercial frameworks
and delivery capability, and
continue engagements with
projects on this, along with
framing the scope and objectives
of the CCS Infrastructure Fund
during 2020.
• Award funding as part of the
second phase of the Industrial

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 10

NID2 DG.indd 10 24/09/2020 14:36


Decarbonisation Challenge by the
end of 2020.
• Provide an update on commercial
frameworks for industry, CO2
transport and storage networks,
and power, by the end of 2020.
• Update assessment of potential
business models to deploy low-
carbon hydrogen by the end of
2020.
• Publish a draft value-for-money
methodology and criteria
and metrics for assessing the
affordability of CCUS-enabled
industrial clusters at the end
of 2020.
• Progress business models for CCUS
and low-carbon hydrogen at pace,
with a view to finalising business
models within the next two years,
in line with expected financial
investment decisions for projects.
CCUS business models must enable the
UK to compete and grow in the global
economy while reducing their carbon
footprint, says the Government. It adds
that it is essential that the models can
stimulate future private sector invest-
ment in CCUS; de-risk delivery and
successful commercial operation of CO2
infrastructure; support initial carbon
capture projects as well as cost reduc-
tions; and catalyse, along with other
enablers, the project pipeline
domestic supply chain.
The Government expects
newly-established CCUS Expert Groups
can accelerate delivery of CCUS business
models. Through these Expert Groups,
launched in February, the Government
intends to pool knowledge, capability,
and resources to progress a decision on
business models. Ongoing meetings are
focussing on power CCUS, industrial
capture, and CO2 transport and storage,
and low-carbon hydrogen.
In its 2020 spring budget, the Govern-
ment announced that it was investing at
least £800m to deploy CCUS in at least
two UK sites, across the decade. This
so-called CCS Infrastructure Fund is
aimed at facilitating deployment in one
cluster by the mid-2020s and a second
NID2 DG.indd 11
NEWS in depth
by 2030, including infrastructure to
support construction of the UK’s first
privately-financed CCS power station
by 2030.
Alongside the required business
models, the Fund is expected to help
provide a pathway to low-carbon tech-
nologies which could support the
Industrial Cluster mission to establish
the world’s first net-zero carbon indus-
trial cluster by 2040 and at least one
low-carbon cluster by 2030.
Industrial CCUS
The Government believes that CCUS
is an important technology for decar-
bonising industry, particularly in
hard-to-abate sectors – cement, chem-
icals, steel and iron, and refineries. It
is therefore committed to progress-
ing CCUS in industrial clusters over the
decade with support from the CCS Infra-
structure Fund.
Of the models outlined in the consul-
tation, the Government found that a
Contract for Difference (CfD) model,
combined with upfront grant support
from the Government for early projects,
received the most support.
The Government explained a CfD
model for industrial CCUS using a CO2
reference price. In the model, the emitter
would partly fund the cost of capture by
and selling any excess free CO2 allowances
(or equivalent) and the Government
that would pay the difference between the
strike price and the defined reference
price for an agreed period. Strike price
would be agreed per ton of CO2 abated,
based on the expected costs of building
and operating the industrial carbon
capture assets.
CfD would provide support to cover
ongoing operational costs as well as
allowing capex investment from the
industrial owner to be recovered.
The Government is currently
using CfDs as the main mechanism
for supporting low-carbon electricity
generation, incentivising investment in
renewables.
In its response, the Government
states that it is minded to progress the
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 11
preferred model and it is carrying out
further work and analysis on the poten-
tial detailed design of the model. This
is expected to enable the Government
to further develop its proposals ahead
of publishing a final business model.
In this regard, the Government says
it is working closely with industry to
achieve this through BEIS-led Industrial
CCUS Expert Groups, alongside bilateral
engagement with stakeholders.
The Government aims to provide an
update on the proposed design of the
industrial CCUS business model before
the end of 2020, including an updated
analysis. By 2022 it aims to have a final
business model in place.
Further topics covered in the Govern-
ment’s response include parameters,
integration, and usage; CO2 transport
and storage; power CCUS; and low-
carbon hydrogen production.
In the report the Government says:
“[CCUS] can play an essential role in
reaching net zero. It can be an engine
to drive cleaner, sustainable growth,
transforming our industrial heartlands.
It can also unlock new jobs and innova-
tive businesses, raising productivity and
competitiveness across the UK.
“We are committed to deploying
CCUS this decade. We are determined to
realise the key strategic opportunities
of CCUS in a way that is affordable and
value for money for the consumer and
taxpayer.”
The Carbon Capture and Storage
Association (CCSA), the UK trade body
for CCUS, welcomed the Government’s
consultation response.
CCSA Chief Executive Luke Warren
said: “This consultation response is a
critical step forward in the development
of the commercial framework that is
essential if the first CCUS projects in the
UK are to be operating by the mid-2020s.
“Whilst this paper does not provide
all of the answers, the Government has
committed to build on this and come
forward with further detail by the end
of the year. We look forward to working
with [the] Government over the coming
months to progress the proposals set
out today.” AJ
24/09/2020 14:36

the profession
Consultation open for new Victoria
engineer registration scheme
IChemE members encouraged to consider getting Chartered
THE state government of Victoria,
Australia has opened a public consulta-
tion for a scheme that will require the
registration of professional engineers
who provide engineering services in the
state. IChemE is encouraging members
to start considering Chartered status in
preparation for expected changes.
Victoria’s Professional Engineers
Registration Act 2019 will come into
effect in July next year. The Act requires
professional engineers to register if
they provide civil, electrical, fire safety,
mechanical, and structural services in
the state, whether from within Victoria
or from outside it. This will only apply to
those working without direct supervision
and who do not operate in accordance
with a prescriptive standard.
The Act foreshadows that registration
may be needed for other areas of engi-
neering. It is expected that chemical
engineering will be considered once the
Act is fully implemented and as part of a
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 12
NID3_4 DG.indd 12
NEWS in depth
review of the scheme set to take place in
2024–2025.
According to the Victorian Govern-
ment, despite the complexity and
importance of the work engineers
perform, and the pivotal role they have
in ensuring public safety, most are not
required to hold any formal government
registration or licence.
The Government expects that the
forthcoming registration scheme for
engineers will ensure professional
services are provided by engineers who
have a minimum level of qualification,
experience, and professional develop-
ment, or are directly supervised by a
professional registered engineer.
Once the Act comes into effect,
approved bodies will be responsible for
assessing individuals to ensure they are
qualified for registration.
Peter Slane, Director of Regions for
IChemE, said the Institution intends
to apply to be an assessing entity for
chemical engineers that seek to apply
to the Professional Engineers Registra-
tion Scheme in Victoria. This will see
the Institution operating in a similar
manner as it already does for the Board
of Professional Engineers of Queensland,
an independent body responsible for
regulating the engineering profession
across the state.
In assessing the qualifications of
chemical engineers looking to register,
IChemE intends to use Chartered status
as its assessment criteria for the scheme.
Slane encouraged members to start
considering getting Chartered in the
coming years to ensure they have the
correct skills for engineering.
Ainslie Just, Chair of the Qualifications
Committee and VP Qualifications for
IChemE, said: “The creation of the Victo-
rian register for professional engineers
is aimed at ensuring public safety by
regulating who can provide engineer-
ing services. Initially it will not apply to
chemical engineers, but that is likely to
change in time to come into line with the
equivalent legislation in Queensland that
has required chemical engineers to be
registered since the 1950s.
“There is pushback in some quarters
against this move to registration, which
is also beginning in NSW. But without
some form of regulation, there is no way
to prevent unqualified and unskilled
people passing themselves off as being
able to provide engineering services
safely.
“If, as expected, chemical engineer-
ing is added to the list of regulated areas
of engineering in Victoria in a few years,
then Chartered Membership of IChemE
is likely to be accepted as evidence of
fitness to practise, as it is in Queensland,
and applications for Chartered Member-
ship are likely to increase significantly.”
Just sits on IChemE’s Board of Trustees
and is the Professional Formation Forum
Chair on IChemE’s Australia Board.
Victoria is seeking feedback from
professional engineers. The current
consultation, which will end on 7
October, is the first of two. The second
will be held in early 2021 and will inform
the proposed registration and endorse-
ment fees and supporting regulatory
impact settlement.
To provide feedback, engineers can
visit the Engage Victoria website, or send
a written submission to engineers@
justice.vic.gov.au Aj
24/09/2020 14:41

industry
UK nuclear faces losses as industry
releases cost-cutting framework
Hunterston B restarts while Hitachi withdraws from Wylfa and Oldbury
UK NUCLEAR has faced ups and downs
in recent months, which saw Hitachi
withdraw from its UK nuclear projects, as
well as Hunterston B temporarily coming
back online and the release of a cost-
cutting framework.
Hitachi withdrawal
Hitachi served a blow to the UK’s net-zero
ambitions and to the economy when
it announced its withdrawal from UK
nuclear. Its UK subsidiary Horizon Nuclear
Power (HNP) will cease development of
its 5.8 GW UK nuclear project, including
construction on the Wylfa Newydd power
plant on Anglesey, Wales. The project had
been suspended since January 2019.
HNP was to build two UK nuclear power
stations, Wylfa and another at Oldbury-
on-Severn in South Gloucestershire,
England. According to multiple sources,
Wylfa was worth up to £20bn (US$25.8bn).
It was to generate 2.9 GW of power.
Construction at Oldbury was to begin after
Wylfa was complete. In January, Hitachi
suspended work on both nuclear builds
as it failed to reach an agreement with
UK Government on project financing and
related commercial arrangements in time
to sustain ongoing levels of development.
Hitachi decided to withdraw because 20
months have passed since the suspension
began, and the investment environment
has become increasingly severe due to the
impacts of Covid-19.
Hitachi and HNP have said they will
work with Government and other relevant
organisations and stakeholders moving
forward, including to discuss the future of
the nuclear sites. Anglesey officials stated
that the county intends to work with UK
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 13
NID3_4 DG.indd 13
NEWS in depth
and Welsh Governments to contemplate
the future of Wylfa.
Hunterston B restart
More positively for UK nuclear, reactor 3
of EDF’s Hunterston B came back online
on 31 August after a two-year shutdown,
having gained approval from the Office
for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) to operate
for 16.425 TWd (Terawatt days), equiv-
alent to about six months of operation.
ONR is responsible for regulating nuclear
safety and security across the UK.
The extended shutdown came after a
March 2018 inspection revealed higher-
than-expected levels of cracking in
the graphite reactor core. Cracking is
expected with time but has the potential
to impact safety. Following assessment of
EDF’s safety case ONR said it is satisfied
that the reactor can operate over the next
period and safely shut down if required.
After the current six months, subject
to regulatory approval, EDF intends to
operate reactor 3 for a final six months.
EDF also intends to run reactor 4, which
shut down for inspection in December
2019, for two final 6-month runs.
According to EDF, as we go to press,
reactor 4 is expected to return to service
on 29 September. EDF also intends to run
reactor 4 for two final 6-month runs.
Once Hunterston stops generating
power, EDF will take on the next task
of defuelling, the first stage of decom-
missioning. Hunterston expects to
move into the defuelling no later than 7
January 2022.
Hunterston B, located in North
Ayrshire, Scotland, UK, is capable of
generating electricity to power almost
Jonathonchampton/Wikipedia
restart: hunterston B
2m homes a year and saving 1.3m t/y in
carbon emissions.
Cost-cutting framework
The UK’s civil nuclear industry trade
association, Nuclear Industry Associ-
ation, recently released a framework
developed by a cross-industry team
that sets out the key factors involved in
reducing risks and costs by 30%, by 2030.
The report was developed as part
of the £200m UK Government-backed
Nuclear Sector Deal, a partnership with
nuclear industry which seeks to drive
down costs, and increase innovation and
workforce diversity.
Low-carbon nuclear energy is key for
the UK’s net zero ambitions, but capacity
is dwindling. According to the World
Nuclear Association, UK nuclear currently
accounts for 20% of electricity genera-
tion and almost half of current capacity
is expected to be retired by 2025. The
UK’s 15 operable facilities, which include
the Hunterston B reactors, generate
8,923 MWe. Two reactors under construc-
tion (Hinkley Point C1 and C2) are to add
3,260 MWe. Aj
24/09/2020 14:41

climate crisis
China pledges to
be carbon neutral
before 2060
Xi Jinping, President of
announced at the United Nations
General Assembly that China aims
to be “carbon neutral” before 2060.
China accounts for around 28%
of global CO2 emissions and had
previously made a commitment in
2015 to ensure its emissions peak
before 2030, but this was the first
time that a zero emissions target
has been discussed.
“The Paris Agreement on climate
change charts the course for the
world to transition to green and
low-carbon development,” said Xi.
“It outlines the minimum steps to
be taken to protect the Earth, our
shared homeland, and all countries
must take decisive steps to honour
this agreement.”
His speech followed that
US President Donald Trump, who
had criticised China for its “ram-
pant pollution” record. The US is
due to leave the Paris Agreement in
November, one day after the presi-
dential election. The announcement
from Xi leaves the US as the largest
emitter in the world without a net
zero target.
Ursula von der Leyen, Presi-
dent of the European Commission,
said on Twitter: “I welcome China’s
ambition to curb emissions and
achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
It’s an important step in our global
fight against climate change under
the Paris Agreement. We will work
with China on this goal. But a lot of
work remains to be done.”
Last week, the EU and China
agreed to establish a High-Level
Environment and Climate
logue to pursue joint climate
commitments.
Newsroundup952 DG.indd 14
NEWS round-up
IrinaK / Shutterstock.com
laura: caused widespread damage
China,
risk & safety
Chemical plant catches fire in wake
of Hurricane Laura
A CHEMICAL plant in Louisiana, US, caught fire after damage from Hurricane Laura
caused a chlorine leak.
of The hurricane made landfall early on 27 August, with wind speeds of up to 240 km/h
recorded. It caused damage to a biolab facility, owned by parent company KIK Custom
Products, near Lake Charles. The facility produces pool- and spa-cleaning products
and stores large amounts of chlorine.
The damage from the storm caused a chlorine leak, which generated heat and
started burning, Superintendent of the Louisiana State Police Kevin Reeves, told The
New York Times. Employees made unsuccessful attempts to put out the fire, and all
employees were evacuated. The fire was reported to be stable and “smouldering” as of
that evening, according to the Louisiana State Police on Facebook, however local media
reported that it started back up and was only completely extinguished on 29 August.
The fire caused a large column of smoke and chlorine gas. According to the CDC,
chlorine can cause blurred vision, coughing, difficulty breathing, nausea, and a burning
sensation in the nose, throat, and eyes. The Governor for Louisiana, John Bel Edwards,
issued a warning on Twitter for residents to shelter in place, close windows, and turn
off air conditioning units. The order was lifted the following day.
According to local media, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said
that very low levels of pollution had been reported. The Department of Environmental
Quality reported no chlorine pollution in nearby waterways.
Environmental Protection Agency data shows that the facility has released 77 t of
chlorine into the air over the last ten years. The US Chemical Safety Board reported that
835 t of trichloroisocyanuric acid was stored at the facility. Its investigation is ongoing.
Separately, Motiva Enterprises’ 600,000 bbl/d refinery in Port Arthur, Texas,
Dia- reported a loss of containment during its planned shutdown prior to the arrival of the
hurricane. It caused a spill of 6 bbl of fuel, according to The Financial Times, which was
contained in a concrete ditch. The company reported that the spill occurred because of
a leak on the process line but that this has been blocked to prevent further leaks.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 14
24/09/2020 14:20
 NEWS round-up
mining
Rio Tinto execs quit after company destroys sacred sites
RIO TINTO’S CEO and two other executives have been forced
to quit the company after it destroyed sacred Aboriginal
sites during the development of an iron ore mine.
In May, the company destroyed two ancient caves - the
Juukan rockshelters – in Pilbara, Western Australia to access
high-grade ore. In September, Rio Tinto announced three exec-
utives – Group CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques, CEO of Rio’s iron
ore business Chris Salisbury, and Group Executive for Corporate
Relations Simone Niven – would leave the company.
John Ashburton, representative of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama
and Pinikura (PKKP) people, said the loss of the site – which
had shown evidence of human inhabitation going back 46,000
years – was a devastating blow.
Pressure mounted on Rio Tinto as a parliamentary inves-
tigation was launched and internal investigations identified
governance failures. The company responded in August by cut-
ting the executive’s bonuses but maintained that “no single
individual or error was responsible for the destruction”.
This failed to relieve the pressure, so in September the com-
pany said having “listened to our stakeholders’ concerns that a
lack of individual accountability undermines the Group’s abil-
ity to rebuild that trust [with the PKKP people]” the executives
would quit Rio Tinto.
Rio Tinto’s investigation found that the company had failed
oil & gas
UK will review how to license North Sea oil in line with net zero
ambitions
THE UK Government has launched a review into how it will license
the offshore oil and gas industry while striving to achieve net zero
emissions by 2050.
While the UK uses clean sources for more than half of its electric-
ity supplies, it still relies heavily on oil and gas to heat homes, for
transport fuels and feedstocks for plastics, and consumer products.
Business and Energy Secretary Alok Sharma said the sector will
continue to be needed for “the foreseeable future” as the UK moves
towards net zero and to safeguard jobs in a sector that supports
270,000 jobs and has provided £30bn (US$39.5bn) in tax income.
Oil majors have been hit hard by Covid-19, with thousands of jobs
being shed as demand for oil has sent prices plummeting.
“Our review into future oil and gas licensing rounds will ensure
we are able to meet our net zero target, while protecting jobs across
the country,” said Sharma.
Issuing licences for companies to produce more fossil fuel may
appear to contradict ambitions to achieve zero emissions. But in
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 15
Newsroundup952 DG.indd 15
heritage: Rio revises processes
to ensure no more destruction
to re-evaluate its mining plans and discuss whether the caves
should be preserved after its own survey identified that the sites
were of greater cultural significance than originally thought.
To prevent a repeat, the company is strengthening its pro-
cesses and teams so that heritage issues are given the same
priority as safety and operational performance. This includes a
new Social Performance role reporting to the Group Executive.
Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson said: “What happened
at Juukan was wrong and we are determined to ensure that the
destruction of a heritage site of such exceptional archaeological
and cultural significance never occurs again.”
announcing the review, the Government pointed out that the sce-
narios developed by the Committee on Climate Change recognise an
ongoing demand for oil and gas in the lead-up to net zero by 2050.
Sharma also noted that the skills of those working in the oil
and gas sector will help build a greener economy. This will include
developing technologies including carbon capture and storage
(CCS) and the hydrogen economy that will help to decarbonise
heavy industry.
The review’s initial findings and next steps will be laid out in
a white paper on energy set to be published alongside this year’s
Autumn statement.
Alex Kemp, Professor of Petroleum Economics at Aberdeen
University, told Energy Voice that the review could lead to new
requirements obliging oil companies to say how they would reduce
emissions if they won a licence. This might include integrat-
ing oilfield infrastructure with offshore wind, CCS and hydrogen
technologies.
24/09/2020 14:20
 NEWS round-up
policy
UK REACH chemicals registration deadline extended
THE UK Government has extended the deadline for UK
chemicals companies to register their products with the
new system that will come into place following the Brexit
transition period. Companies will now have up to six years to
complete registrations, up from two years.
UK REACH will come into force from 1 January, replac-
ing the EU REACH system after the Government confirmed in
June that it would not be aligning with the European system.
Forming a UK version of REACH, rather than seeking associate
membership of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), will
require some UK chemicals companies to reregister chemicals.
Companies do not always have access to the data they need to
register chemicals, and the original deadline of two years to
register was considered by the industry to be too soon.
The UK Government has now announced that it will be
extending the time for companies to register with UK REACH
to up to six years. Under the new guidance for registra-
tions, new registrations must take place within two, four, or
six years depending on the tonnage and how hazardous the
chemical is.
Rebecca Pow, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of
Defra wrote to Philip Dunne, Chairman of the Environmen-
tal Audit Committee (EAC), about the update. Dunne has
previously raised concerns about the UK REACH regulations.
“The principle of ‘no data, no market’ is central to UK and
EU REACH,” said Pow. “The provision of data to the regula-
tor gives public assurance that industry understands the risks
of the chemicals they use and gives the UK regulators a full
evidence base to inform future regulatory decisions. Therefore,
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 16
Newsroundup952 DG.indd 16
in considering the findings from the evidence-gathering
exercise we looked at options which would enable industry to
mitigate costs without reducing important environmental and
health protections. We have concluded that the most effec-
tive way of achieving this is to extend the transitional data
submission timetable in a phased, risk-based, manner.”
“I hope the revised timetable to register on the new
UK REACH system offers the chemicals industry some
reassurance and breathing room to collate the
necessary data from EU partners”
Dunne said: “The Government has listened to feedback from
stakeholders, businesses and my Committee and I welcome
their efforts to ease the transition for the chemicals indus-
try. I hope the revised timetable to register on the new UK
REACH system offers the chemicals industry some reassur-
ance and breathing room to collate the necessary data from
EU partners.
Nishma Patel, Policy Director at the Chemical Indus-
tries Association, said: “With the newly-suggested phased
approach to registration, companies will be in the position to
spread costs and resources over a longer period of time com-
pared to the two years initially planned. While we welcome the
announcement, there needs to be a deal between the UK and
EU on a future relationship that will include close cooperation
and an agreement on chemical data.”
24/09/2020 14:20
 NEWS round-up
environment
Unilever invests €1bn to develop sustainable cleaning products
UNILEVER has announced that it will invest €1bn (US$1.18bn)
over the next ten years, as it seeks to replace fossil-fuel derived
ingredients in its cleaning and laundry product formulations with
recycled and renewable alternatives.
The €1bn investment will be used to finance biotechnology
research, carbon dioxide (CO2) utilisation, low-carbon chemistry,
biodegradable and water-efficient formulations, and reducing the
use of virgin plastic.
The company intends to diversify carbon sources through
its Carbon Rainbow scheme. This will see Unilever replace non-
renewable sources (black carbon) with captured CO2 (purple),
plants and biologicals (green), marine algae (blue), and carbon
recovered from waste materials such as plastics (grey). This new
way of sourcing carbon will be guided by environmental impact
assessments and work alongside Unilever’s sustainable sourcing
programmes to prevent unintended pressures on ecosystems.
Peter ter Kulve, President of Home Care at Unilever, said: “We
must stop pumping carbon from under the ground when there
is ample carbon on and above the ground – if we can learn to
utilise it at scale.
Unilever has partnered with chemicals company Tuticorin Alkali
industry 4.0
Singapore site to pioneer digital twin technology for Shell
SHELL has announced that its manufacturing site in Pulau Bukom,
Singapore, home of Singapore’s first refinery, will pilot digital twin
technology for the company.
A digital twin is a virtual duplicate of a real structure, or system,
combining data and models, that evolves over time. They have the
potential to aid design and promise enhanced operation and man-
agement commands.
According to Shell, the power of digital twin lies in its visual,
data, and analytical capabilities. Live information about plant
operations can be provided to engineers via augmented reality
and virtual reality, reducing the need to step into the plant. For
example, when troubleshooting is an issue, various options can
be tested in real-time on the virtual platform before a solution is
selected. This improves efficiency, prevents downtime, reduces
maintenance costs, and allows effective real-time collaboration
between experts and operators, says the company.
Narayanan Valayaputtur, Engineering and Projects Manager
at Shell, explained that by setting up a virtual plant through the
digital twin and by equipping staff with a tablet, the company is
creating a new culture that will allow work to be done remotely
with the provision of complex data at the employees’ fingertips.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 17
Newsroundup952 DG.indd 17
Emilio100 / Shutterstock.com
Chemicals and Fertilisers (TACF) in southern India and Carbon Clean
Solutions (CCSL), a CO2 separation technologies company. CCSL and
TACF launched a project in October 2016 to produce soda ash, a
key ingredient in laundry detergent, from captured CO2. In Slove-
nia, Unilever is partnering with specialty chemicals company Evonik
Industries to develop rhamnolipids, a type of renewable and bio-
degradable surfactant used in its Sunlight (Quix) dishwashing liquid
in Chile and Vietnam. Unilever aims to significantly scale and build
from both technologies.
Shell will map large amounts of data from the 59-year-old inte-
grated oil and petrochemicals site into the digital twin’s processor
to enable stronger machine learning. Scanning of the Pulau Bukom
site began in 2017, and as of August 2020, about 60% of the site has
been mapped virtually. The company is coaching its technical tal-
ent to support the digital transformation. Since late 2019, about 140
employees in various teams at the site have been participating in
“hackathons” and digital bootcamps under various programmes to
gain digital capabilities and competence. Over the next two years,
all employees at the Pulau Bukom site will be trained and equipped
to operate the digital twin. The site has committed to investing
more than 6,000 training hours each year, starting from 2021.
By 2025, the company expects that all critical field operations
at Pulau Bukom will be performed through tablets. Shell says it
expects a full roll-out of the new technology across the island in
four years as workforce capabilities and digital assets mature, which
is expected to result in improvements of about 25% in productiv-
ity, reliability, and safety. Full implementation is also expected to
enable the Singapore site to be more competitive and innovative,
and to deliver new levels of efficiency, safety standards, and plant
intelligence.
24/09/2020 14:20
 NEWS research & development

coronavirus
carbon capture
Partnership creates
Pale Blue Dot forms partnership to alcohol-free sanitisers
A PARTNERSHIP between researchers at
capture CO2 from air in the UK Aston University, UK, and EcoMotive has
developed alcohol-free hand and surface
PALE Blue Dot has signed an agreement with Carbon Engineering to work together on sanitisers for use against Covid-19, which
deploying direct air capture (DAC) technology in the UK. protect the skin against the virus for up to
The partners aim for their collaboration to remove 1m t/y of CO2 from the atmos- six hours.
phere. One of the locations being considered to deploy direct air capture technology is EcoMotive is a green motor care com-
North East Scotland, close to the Acorn CCS project being developed by Pale Blue Dot. In pany that had originally partnered with
2018, the Acorn project became the first project in the UK granted a licence by the UK’s Aston University to develop fuel additives to
Oil and Gas Authority to appraise transport and storage of CO2 offshore. reduce emissions from vehicles. However,
Acorn aims to be operational from late 2024 and the first DAC project could be during the Covid-19 pandemic, the collab-
operational two years later, the company said. oration changed its research objectives to
Carbon Engineering’s DAC process works by passing air over thin plastic surfaces producing a hand sanitiser that could effec-
that have potassium hydroxide solution flowing over them. This binds with CO2 from tively kill the virus, but was alcohol-free,
the air, forming a carbonate salt. The salt is then separated out using a pellet reactor. odourless, non-flammable, and kinder to
The pellets are then heated in a calciner to release the CO2 as gas for use or storage. The skin.
processed pellets are hydrated in a slaker and recycled back into the capture system. Scientists from Aston University’s
The technology has been used to capture 1 t/d of CO2 at Carbon Engineering’s pilot Smarterials programme, part of the Aston
plant at Squamish, Canada, since 2015, and convert the CO2 to fuel since 2017. Institute of Materials Research (AIMR),
In 2018, Carbon Engineering published a detailed engineering and cost analysis of refined the chemical formulations of the
its DAC process in the journal Joule. It estimated that a 1m t/y DAC plant would have a sanitiser and certified it to required stand-
levelised cost of US$94–232 for each ton of CO2 captured from the atmosphere. ards. The sanitiser range, marketed under
In August, a partnership including oil firm Occidental was formed to deploy the DAC the name Hygiene Pro, uses benzalkonium
technology at commercial scale in the US. A FEED study will begin next year and plans chloride instead of alcohol. Benzalkonium
are for a 1m t/y plant to begin operation in 2022. chloride is an antimicrobial compound
widely used in the healthcare industry.
The sanitiser creates a barrier by form-
pharma ing a microemulsion that has a sustained
release system which keeps the sanitiser
PSE and Siemens join partnership to advance effective for hours. It will protect against

continuous drug manufacturing the virus for six hours on hands, and 30 days
on surfaces.
THE UK’s Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre has expanded its partners to Paul Topham, Head of the Chemical
include PSE, Siemens, and Perceptive Engineering in a push to advance continuous Engineering and Applied Chemistry (CEAC)
drugs manufacture. Department and Director of the Smarterials
The centre, which is due for completion in Scotland in 2021, is a collaboration programme at Aston University, said: “This is
between the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), the University of Strathclyde, and a great example of how our strong partner-
Big Pharma partners AstraZeneca and GSK. ships with SMEs result in practical solutions
The Medicines Manufacturing Innovation Centre said the new partners will help to real-world problems. It’s incredibly sat-
the centre fulfil its ambition to research how oral solid dosage medicines can be pro- isfying to see that our work with EcoMotive
duced more robustly and efficiently; and more quickly deliver medicines to patients. has led to safer, longer-lasting sanitisers
PSE supplies advanced process modelling software that it says will use predictive coming on stream so quickly to better pro-
process modelling to help move industry away from a “design-make-test” develop- tect people from Covid-19. We are excited
ment cycle and towards a “predict first” model. This will reorder development to a to see how much more work we can do with
design-test-make model that will result in fast, sustainable and cost-effective man- companies to make real differences to our
ufacturing process development, the partners said. local, national and global communities.”
Perceptive Engineering will use its software to provide advanced process con- The partnership is currently producing
trol and Siemens will contribute expertise in process automation for pharmaceutical 20,000 L/week and plans to scale this up to
manufacture. 200,000 L/w.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 18

randd952 DG.indd 18 24/09/2020 14:56

 NEWS research & development
refining
Novel membrane for crude oil fractionation
AN INTERNATIONAL research team has developed new mem-
brane technology that could reduce carbon emissions and
energy intensity associated with oil refining. The researchers
say the membrane is the first reported synthetic membrane
specifically designed to separate crude oil and crude-oil
fractions.
Crude oil fractionation is typically achieved
heat-based distillation. The process is large-scale
energy-intensive, and accounts for nearly 1% of global energy use
– 1,100 TWh/y. Membrane-based separation offers the potential
to reduce the energy intensity of thermal separation, however the
complexity of refining has thus far limited the use of membranes.
By substituting low-energy membranes for certain steps in
the distillation process, new technology could one day allow
implementation of hybrid refining systems which could signifi-
cantly reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption.
Researchers from ExxonMobil, Georgia Institute of Technology
and Imperial College London, UK overcame existing limitations
by developing a novel spirocyclic polymer to create membranes
capable of separating complex hydrocarbon mixtures through the
application of pressure rather than heat.
Using one of the polymer membranes, named SBAD-1, the
researchers were able to fraction a real shale-based light whole
crude oil at 130oC with an applied pressure of 5.5 MPa.
Following separation, the crude oil was enriched with 60%
hydrocarbons lighter than 170 Da corresponding to a carbon
number of 12 (C12) or a boiling point of less than 200oC. A dal-
ton, or Da, is a unit of mass equal to exactly 1/12th the mass
of a carbon-12 atom. The 60% enrichment was an increase
from 38% enrichment in the feed. Andrew Livingston, Profes-
sor of Chemical Engineering at Imperial, explained that this
degree of separation could be employed in a hybrid membrane-
distillation process, involving multiple membrane separations, to
reduce energy consumption.
The separation ability of the developed membranes demon-
strates selectivity for molecules in the naphtha (C5–12) and
early kerosene (C10–C18) boiling range. The naphtha and ker-
osene fractions of crude oil make up the primary components of
gasoline and jet fuel, respectively. The fractions typically con-
tain hydrocarbons with boiling points ranging from 90oC–300oC,
making them a good candidate for membrane-based hydrocar-
bon fractionation.
Full separation of the fractions would require repeated mem-
brane stages in a membrane cascade, explained Livingston.
The researchers discovered that SBAD-1 has a low permeance
of 0.016 L/m2/h/bar which is at the lower end of what is commer-
cially viable. However, the permeance was achieved with films of
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 19
randd952 DG.indd 19
Christopher Moore, Georgia Tech
through
and
around 0.5–1.0 micron thickness, and it could be increased by
optimising the fabrication process to produce thinner films.
The polymer membrane was discovered to have a molecular
weight cutoff of about 253 g/mol, and could achieve separations
of molecules in the 100–350 g/mol range. Most other mem-
branes operating in similar regimes require post-polymerisation
or post-fabrication modifications, which can be costly and diffi-
cult to scale up. The polymers used in this study can be tailored
with simple changes in composition and performance.
According to the researchers, the properties of the SBAD
family make it promising for the separation of small-sized mol-
ecules in complex mixtures such as crude regimes. However,
further work is needed to optimise the methods for synthesis-
ing the polymer to improve the permeance while maintaining
selectivity, said Livingston. He added that the research team is
currently “continuing work into further developments across the
field of polymer chemistry, materials science, and separations
engineering”.
Livingston commented: “Chemical engineering has been
hugely influenced, perhaps to some extent defined, by the
development of distillation. With these membranes, we hope to
stimulate a re-think of business-as-usual in the field of molecu-
lar separation – but we need help to innovate and hope chemical
engineers will take up the challenge with us to imagine and
create new, low-energy routes to the materials society needs.”
The researchers worked collaboratively, with the polymer
being designed and tested at Georgia Tech, then converted into
200 nm thick films, and incorporated into membrane mod-
ules at Imperial. Samples were tested at all three organisations
involved in the research, providing multi-lab confirmation of the
membrane capabilities.
Science: https://bit.ly/3h43mO4
24/09/2020 14:56
 feature instrumentation

The future of production:

3D printers

Opening Up
Instrumentation
John de Mello explains how scientific instrumentation is becoming
more open, more affordable and easier to make

U
NTIL recently, if you needed a scientific instrument, you
had two options: you could buy a ready-made system
or you could design and build one yourself. The first
option was expensive, but the second was tricky and time-
consuming. Even if you were fortunate enough to have detailed
technical plans for the instrument taken from a book or a paper,
there was no guarantee you could source the necessary parts or
would have the workshop tools needed to make it. In addition,
key pieces of information – eg circuit diagrams for the control
electronics, assembly and alignment instructions, calibration
procedures, and source code for the control software – were
almost certainly missing, leaving a great deal of work to do before
you had a working system. In most cases, any potential savings
in hardware costs were outweighed by excessive labour costs and
a significant risk of failure, inviting the obvious question: why on
earth would you want to do it yourself?
Fortunately in the last few years the barriers to building your own
scientific instruments have started to come down. More and more
equipment designs are being released as open hardware (OH), ie on
a royalty-free basis and with all the design files, source-code and
support materials needed to build a fully-functional system. With
the correct tools and components in hand, everything you need to
know to build a working instrument is provided, avoiding much of
the hassle and risk of designing a system from scratch. Importantly,
many OH projects place a high priority on widening access to scien-
tific equipment, especially in developing countries. Hence, they
tend to use inexpensive and easily-sourced components, low-cost
fabrication methods such as 3D-printing, and simple assembly and
alignment procedures. They therefore turn the normally daunting
task of building scientific equipment into a much simpler, guided
process that is somewhat reminiscent of assembling flat-pack
furniture or completing a hobbyist construction kit.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 20

instrumentation DG.indd 20 24/09/2020 13:59

 feature instrumentation
open or closed?
While many OH projects prioritise low cost over all else (and are
consequently willing to accept compromised performance in the
interest of maximising affordability), others set their sights on
achieving state-of-the art performance in terms of sensitivity,
resolution or functionality. Hence, it should not be assumed that
open hardware is necessarily a low-end choice. Even projects
that start off with lacklustre specifications have the potential
to reach laboratory-grade performance eventually, fuelled by
multiple design tweaks from contributors across the globe. (The
philosophy of the OH movement is that two heads are better
than one – and for that matter three are better than two – so
suggestions for improving performance and functionality are
generally welcomed and encouraged).
From a user perspective, there are many reasons why it
might make sense to choose open hardware over proprietary
hardware. In many cases, the decision is motivated entirely by
cost, as OH is usually much cheaper, often by a factor of ten or
more. Running costs also tend to be lower since users are not
locked into using vendor-specific consumables; nor are they
forced to take out costly service contracts or software subscrip-
tions. In addition, OH is less susceptible to obsolescence since it
can more easily be repaired, modified or upgraded. Typical OH
build-times are a few days, compared to potential lead times
of months for non-stock proprietary hardware. Hence, when
a solution is needed urgently, OH based on routinely-stocked
parts may be the only choice.
For simple measurements, fully-featured commercial
systems are often overkill, and a simple OH solution may be
sufficient or even preferable. This is especially true in laboratory
teaching, where using pared-back OH may expose the underly-
ing measurement principles more effectively than a closed-box
commercial product. The lower costs of OH may additionally
allow equipment to be provided on a “one-per-person” rather
than a “one-per-class” basis, enhancing the student experi-
ence. For complex measurements, OH is sometimes chosen
because commercial systems lack essential functionality or the
equipment needs to operate in a niche environment for which
commercial systems are unsuited.
In some cases, people select OH simply because they enjoy the
intellectual challenge of building equipment over which they
have full control. Of course, for every person who relishes the
idea of making their own kit, there are probably a dozen more
who would rather stick needles in their eyes! If you fall into
the second category, proprietary hardware is probably a better
option for you. (Note, however, that a few vendors sell pre-
assembled OH products that work straight out of the box, so
in some instances OH can also provide a hassle-free solution).
Easy as pi?
The sharing of hardware designs in science is of course nothing
new, and venerable journals like the Review of Scientific Instru-
ments have been doing it for almost a century now. What is new,
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 21
instrumentation DG.indd 21
however, is the ease with which published hardware designs
can be turned into functional equipment. Low-cost rapid
prototyping techniques such as 3D printing, laser cutting, and
desktop milling have placed sophisticated fabrication capabili-
ties in the hands of the general engineer or scientist, and have
reduced the process of replicating physical parts to little more
than running a downloaded script.
At the same time, the availability of powerful but easy-to-
use microcontroller and microprocessor platforms has made it
easier than ever before to control and automate hardware. The
best-known examples are the Arduino microcontroller devel-
opment boards (MDBs) and the Raspberry Pi single-board
computers, which were launched with the respective aims of
simplifying hardware automation and encouraging teaching of
computing in schools. The two platforms are similar in that
they both offer complete “ecosystems” that combine affordable
hardware with free and easy-to-use software tools, exten-
sive documentation, dynamic communities of users who freely
share ideas and advice, and a wide-range of third-party expan-
sion boards that increase the functionality of the core hardware.
Modern MDBs have a lot of built-in functionality that can
greatly simplify the job of the instrument developer. Useful
features include timers for accurate scheduling of tasks,
analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) for reading analogue
input signals, digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) for gener-
ating arbitrary voltage waveforms, and hard-wired digital
communication protocols for easily exchanging data with other
digital hardware. Missing functionality for tasks such as signal
conditioning, motion control, wireless communication, and
audio or image processing can often be added through inex-
pensive add-on boards, potentially avoiding the need to ever
design a circuit board or pick up a soldering iron. In many cases,
the need for complex analogue circuitry can be side-stepped
by carrying out digital signal processing within the microcon-
troller source-code, using open-source software libraries to
take care of the necessary calculations. In this way, it is quite
feasible to assemble a complete scientific instrument from
one or two off-the-shelf development boards and a handful of
components and sensors, reducing development time, simpli-
fying fabrication and keeping costs low.
hints and tips for oh developers
If you’re thinking about releasing a product as OH, there are a
few issues to bear in mind. Firstly, it’s worth considering the
licensing terms before you publish your project: some open
hardware is released without any restrictions, while other
projects place limitations on how the licensed material is
used, modified or distributed. For example they may preclude
commercial use or mandate the publication of improvements.
The licence terms you choose – if any – will to some extent
determine how willing other people are to get involved and
contribute ideas, with restrictive licences acting as a possible
deterrent to participation. You should therefore decide how
24/09/2020 13:59
 feature instrumentation
Box 1: Opol, the Open Polarimeter
Chemical polarimeters measure the optical rotation
angle of materials, ie their ability to rotate linearly-
polarised light. They are essential analytical tools in many
fields including pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics and
chemicals. Conventional polarimeters work by aiming a verti-
cally-polarised laser beam at a horizontally-oriented polariser
which blocks the incident light. Placing an optically-active
sample in the path of the laser beam causes the polarisation
axis of the beam to rotate, allowing some of the laser light
to leak through the polariser. The polariser is then rotated
until the leak is eliminated, and the optical rotation angle is
found by measuring the angle through which the polariser
has been turned. The technique is simple in theory but rather
challenging in practice since it requires sensitive detectors, high-
quality motors and accurate rotary sensors capable of meas-
uring angular deviations of a few millidegrees. Consequently,
high resolution commercial instruments are expensive,
typically retailing for US$10,000–30,000.
The open polarimeter (Opol) is an OH instrument that makes
high-resolution polarimetry available at a cost of just a few
hundred dollars. By using a timing-based measurement tech-
nique instead of a mechanical one, Opol avoids the need for
any precision-engineered parts. Stripped to its essentials (see
Figure 1, top left), it consists of two vertically-polarised laser
beams L1 and L2 that pass through the centre of a polariser P
before striking two photodetectors D1 and D2. The polariser
is made to rotate at a constant speed and the two detectors
are read by separate analogue input pins of a microcontroller,
with the polariser rotation causing the measured signals V1
and V2 to vary in a sinusoidal fashion. Inserting an optically-
active sample in one of the beam-paths opens up a phase
difference Δ between the signals equal to twice the optical
rotation angle (see Figure 1, bottom right). Hence, by getting the
you would like to see your project operate and evolve, and then
choose a licence accordingly. The CERN OH licences are a good
starting point for many OH developers.
Before publishing your project, it’s a good idea to make sure
it doesn’t infringe any existing patents as you can only license
out what’s yours to give away in the first place. (Checking for
infringements can be tedious but if – as is often the case with
scientific instruments – your design is broadly based on ideas
that have been in the public domain for 20 years or more, then
you’re probably in the clear).
When you do come to release your design, try to make sure it
will be permanently accessible, eg by uploading it to an estab-
lished public repository or by publishing it as an open-access
paper with all the necessary design files and supporting docu-
ments included as supplementary information. Don’t just post it
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 22
instrumentation DG.indd 22
microcontroller to calculate the phase difference between the
two signals, the optical rotation angle can be found.
Opol nicely illustrates how a change in analytical procedure
– swapping a measurement of angular rotation for a
measurement of phase-difference – can sometimes lead to
substantial cost savings. The phase-based method requires no
precision parts, and the functional component list comprises
just one laser diode, two photodetectors, some commodity
optics, a microcontroller and a low-cost motor with associ-
ated drive circuitry at a total cost of around US$350. Despite
its low cost, Opol is a state-of-the-art instrument with
millidegree resolution that matches the best commercial
instruments. Current work focusses on simplifying the optical
layout to bring the complete build cost below US$200, includ-
ing all mounts, optics and electronics (Figure 1, main image).
AJ Harvie, NTNU, Norway
L1 S D2
L2 D1
P
figure 1: Photograph showing the latest version of Opol. (OH details
at https://github.com/ajharvie/polarimeter and https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41598-020-61715-7
on your personal website, because in ten years it will probably
have disappeared without trace!
Secondly, as far as OH is concerned, it is worth heeding
Einstein’s famous advice that everything should be “as simple
as possible, but no simpler”. By stripping superfluous elements
from your design and basing it on easily-made parts and
standard off-the-shelf-components, you can simplify fabrica-
tion and lower costs, thereby ensuring your design is accessible
to the widest possible user-base. Keep simplifying until perfor-
mance starts to suffer unduly. Then stop. In OH projects
– where products are typically intended to be affordable even on
a one-off basis – bespoke components are rarely a viable option
(although rapid prototyping has changed this a bit). Instead
try to base your design on common off-the-shelf components,
easily-made parts, and “re-purposed” standard hardware.
24/09/2020 13:59
 feature instrumentation

Thirdly, the need for costly precision-engineered mechanical
or optical parts can sometimes be avoided through a careful
selection of the measurement technique. The most intuitive
techniques are not necessarily the easiest ones to implement
in practice. Hence, where possible, it is best to select analyt-
ical procedures based on physical properties that are easy to
measure. Timing-based measurements are particularly well
suited to low-cost implementation on digital hardware (eg
see Box 1). In addition, ratiometric and differential measure-
ments – in which a reference signal is measured alongside
the target signal – can significantly lessen hardware demands
by compensating for fluctuations or drift in experimental
parameters.
Fourthly, it’s a good idea to offer a few variants of your instru-
ment based on different design trade-offs, eg a low-cost
model for education and routine measurements, and a higher-
performing model based on more costly components for more
demanding applications. Ideally, all versions should be based on a
common framework with a simple upgrade path from one version
to the next by swapping out individual parts (eg see Box 2).
Finally, and this is perhaps the most important point of
all, document your project well. An OH project lives or dies on
the quality of its documentation. One reason the Raspberry
Pi single-board computers are so popular is the exceptional
quality of their supporting documentation. They’re not just a
family of affordable, well designed computers. They’re also easy

Box 2: The OpenFlexure Microscope

High quality microscopes need high quality optics. But the
best optics in the world will still give you lousy images
if you can’t reliably position and focus your sample. The
sample stage and focussing mechanism are therefore
critical elements of any microscope that ordinarily require
the use of expensive precision-engineered mechanical
parts for reliable, high-quality imaging.
The OpenFlexure Microscope (OFM) is an OH microscope with
a 3D-printed chassis that provides high resolution positioning
at extremely low cost by turning one of the perceived weak-
nesses of printed plastic parts – namely their lack of structural
rigidity – into an advantage. OFM gets its name from its use
of 3D-printed flexures – flexible elements that bend smoothly
for use in the developing world, with the microscope using
hard-wearing and easily-sourced parts, the flexure mechanisms
being tolerant to dust and humidity, and sensitive parts being
sealed against dust and contamination. The optics are easy
to modify and the software is extensible through third-party
plug-ins, allowing OFM to be extended to other imaging tech-
niques such as super-resolution imaging and quantitative phase
imaging. The project is comprehensively documented from the
perspective of both developers and users, with the latter group
benefiting from step-by-step assembly guides. Overall, OFM is
an excellent example of high quality open hardware that serves
as a great benchmark for how OH projects should be run.

Joel Collins, University of Bath

under the influence of an applied force, allowing the sample
and objective to be accurately manoeuvred with sub-100 nm
resolution.
OFM comes in various versions, which all share the same
flexure mechanism. The simplest version is a US$15 manual
instrument that conveniently uses a webcam with a flipped-
over lens for the complete optics and sensor. The top-end
version is a US$225 automated laboratory-grade instrument
that incorporates a motorised stage, conventional high quality
microscope optics, and an eight megapixel optical sensor array.
An on-board Raspberry Pi computer offers basic functionality
such as hardware configuration, motion control and image
acquisition, while a separate open-source software package
running on a remote computer provides advanced options such
as autofocussing, time-lapse photography, and image-tiling.
It is clear that much thought has gone into OFM, with several
features standing out. The microscope has been designed for
easy fabrication and high reliability, eg the microscope chassis
prints without sacrificial support materials (eliminating a
common cause of print failures), and the optical components
are largely self-aligning thanks to push-fittings and 3D-printed figure 2: The OpenFlexure Microscope in assembled form (L) and
insertion tools. Care has been taken to ensure OFM is suitable ‘exploded’ form (R). https://openflexure.org

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 23

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 feature instrumentation

to use thanks to extensive tutorials, teaching materials, techni-

cal papers, and video guides (plus some user-friendly software).
The more thoroughly you can explain issues such as how your
instrument works, what performance trade-offs you’ve made
in its design, the reasons for your component choices, common
pitfalls in construction, and recommended operating protocols,
the easier it will be for others to use it and improve it.

Will it fly?
There is of course no guaranteed formula for developing a
successful OH project. Whether or not a project thrives depends
on many factors, including: the extent to which it addresses a
genuine need; the availability, cost and performance of competi-
tor products; the reliability of the design; the ease of fabrication;
more than child’s play: raspberry pi Single-Board Computers were
the quality of the supporting files and documentation; and the
originally developed to promote the teaching of computing in schools,
“visibility” of the project. (It doesn’t matter how good your
but are also a great choice for low-cost scientific instruments
product is if no-one knows about it, which is another good
reason not to leave it languishing on your personal website!) Box 3: resources
Bear in mind too that the biggest impact of your project may There are many resources that can be helpful when
not necessarily be at the level of the complete system you’ve developing open instrumentation, and I’ve listed a few of
created, especially if it’s a very specialised instrument with a my personal favourites below. Not all of them are specif-
small potential user-base. Instead, it might be a small element ically concerned with open instrumentation or indeed
of your design (such as a translation mechanism or an optical open hardware, but all of them provide useful information
mount) that turns out to be most important, solving a problem for developing open products.
that is common to many other projects. Hence, if you want
your OH project to be of maximum value to others, it pays to Websites
document every part thoroughly. • Instructables – A vast library of step-by-step DIY
Finally, it is important to acknowledge that the OH movement projects, many of which relate to open-hardware.
is still in its infancy. Open hardware accounts for only a tiny https://www.instructables.com
fraction of scientific instruments in use today, performance
typically falls short of the best commercial instruments, and • Lab on the cheap and Hackaday – Two great places to
coverage is sparse, with many types of scientific instrument learn about open hardware and creating technology on
having no open implementations at all. Hence, there is plenty of a budget.
scope for the quality and reach of OH to increase. Fortunately, the https://www.labonthecheap.com and
ability of OH projects to learn and quite literally take from one https://hackaday.io
another means improvements in one project can readily propa-
• Thingiverse – A huge repository of 3D-printed designs,
gate to others, accelerating progress across the board. Likewise,
most of which are freely available to
new OH projects are not born into a vacuum but can use road-
use and modify.
tested building blocks from older projects as the basis for new
https://www.thingiverse.com
instrumental designs. Hence, as with open source software, it
seems likely that the sophistication, coverage and uptake of • Makers muse – A terrific series of videos on 3D printing
OH products will increase steadily in the years to come. Ideally, and other rapid prototyping techniques, including
OH versions of all commonly-used instruments will eventually equipment reviews and helpful tutorials on computer-
become available, offering laboratory-grade performance at a aided design.
far lower cost than proprietary hardware. If and when that point https://www.youtube.com/makersmuse
is reached, the question will no longer be “why would you do it
yourself?” but “why wouldn’t you?” Automation
• Arduino – For most people, Arduinos are probably
the easiest entry point to the world of Microcontroller
John de Mello is Director of Nanoscience at the Norwegian University Development Boards (MDBs), with a wide variety of
of Science and Technology. This work is licensed under a Creative expansion boards available. Bear in mind that a lot of
Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence, see http://creative third-party MDBs strive for Arduino compatibility, so
commons.org/licenses/by/4.0

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 feature instrumentation
you’re not restricted to the official family of Arduino MDBs.
(The Teensy microcontrollers from PJRC are my favoured
choice when it comes to Arduino-compatible boards).
One warning: while Arduino’s Interactive Development
Environment (IDE) is okay for beginners, after a while its
limitations will begin to grate. Try PlatformIO instead –
a full-featured open-source IDE that supports a huge range
of MDBs ‘straight out of the box’.
https://www.arduino.cc, https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/
and https://platformio.org
• Raspberry Pi – A family of small, affordable single-board
computers, originally developed to promote teaching of
computing in schools. They’re a great choice for scientific
instrumentation when you need a cheap computer that’s
capable of running a full operating system.
https://www.raspberrypi.org
OH instrumentation
There are many examples of open instrumentation in the
academic literature, with HardwareX, the Review of Scientific
Instruments and the Journal of Open Hardware being particularly
useful resources.
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/hardwarex
https://aip.scitation.org/journal/rsi and
https://openhardware.metajnl.com
The following projects are worth checking out as good examples
of open instrumentation:
• Open Raman – A project that aims to develop a research-
grade Raman spectrometer. It’s very much a work in
progress, with the initial focus being on performance
rather than cost. Every element of the design is thoroughly
explained in a blog-style website. This is a high-quality
project that’s all the more impressive for being the work of
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 25
instrumentation DG.indd 25
Daniel Chetroni / Shutterstock.com
a single person, Luc.
https://www.open-raman.org
• FreeLoader – This cleverly-named instrument is a
research-grade Universal Testing Machine for measuring
the tensile strength and compressive strength of materials.
With a build cost of US$4,000, its 5 kN load capacity
and ±2 N accuracy compare favourably with commercial
systems costing five times as much. The hardware hasn’t
changed since it was first published in 2011 (and there are
some clear opportunities for substantial cost reductions),
so updating the design could make a great project for the
newcomer to open instrumentation development.
https://www.creativemachineslab.com/freeloader.html
• Potentiometry – A surprisingly large number of open
potentiostats have been developed – at least six at the
time of writing. Worth checking out are DStat (ideal for
low-current measurements), Rodeostat (an example of
open hardware that is also available to purchase as a
ready-to-use pre-assembled product), and the dual-
functioning potentiostat/galvanostat by Detavernier
and co-workers (optimised for thin-film battery
characterisation).
See: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0140349,
https://iorodeo.com/products/potentiostat-shield and
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/
S2468067217300317
Licensing
Don’t lose sleep fretting over the licence for your OH project.
For most people, one of the CERN Open Hardware Licences
should suffice. You can find out more at
https://cern-ohl.web.cern.ch and
https://jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/139/260
24/09/2020 13:59
 feature careers
Experiences
John Wilson explains why undergraduate placements are so important
T
OWARDS the end of 2004, I had pretty much decided that
chemical engineering was potentially one of the biggest
mistakes I had made. I was half-way through my third year
of university, finding the course very hard and not looking forward
to what it offered me in terms of a future.
At this point, several of my course-mates had found placements
and most of the others were well into the process of applications.
I had made a few applications but struggled with motivation when
the jobs just didn’t appeal.
Fast forward nearly 16 years and I find myself having
graduated with a 2:1, working in the water treatment sector, a
sizeable list of countries visited on business, and having had a
Sometimes I am asked what
were the defining moments
in my career and my answer
is always the same: my
industrial placement
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 26
careers DGv2.indd 26
reasonably successful career so far. Sometimes I am asked what
were the defining moments in my career and my answer is always
the same: my industrial placement.
It is because of this that I have become so passionate about the
topic of industrial years and driving the message of what benefits
they can have for people in the very early stages in their chemical
engineering journey. In this article I aim to explore the one-year
industrial placements, sometimes called “sandwich years”, and
the benefits that they can offer.
It’s important to note that, while I won’t be discussing shorter
placements, all types of placement are invaluable, whether it be
two weeks or three months during the summer.
Whilst many UK universities actively encourage students
to take industrial years, not many make it a manda-
tory part of the course. I attended, perhaps luckily, Aston
University in Birmingham, UK, where the placements were
strongly promoted.
Carolina Salinas, Head of Placements at Aston informed me that
today, 74% of the student body does placements and such is their
belief in the value of these years that they have a goal to get that
number to 100% by 2023.
Class of
To present a wider view of the benefits of placements, I spoke with
graduates who had done a year in industry and are currently at
various stages of their careers:
• Pasha Khan finished her Bachelor’s with a placement in
2016 and went on to do a Master’s in Advanced Chemical
Engineering at Birmingham University, UK.
• Jack Muirhead graduated from the University of Chester,
UK in 2019, and was one of the first through its new
24/09/2020 12:55
 feature careers
pasha khan: expectations
can be different to the
reality of working
chemical engineering programme. At the time, the
university did not offer placements as part of its courses
but, realising the importance, Jack took a year out and
organised one himself.
• Emma Markwell is a 2020 graduate who is taking her first
steps of her post-university chemical engineering journey
in the Covid era.
I asked them why they thought it was important to do an
industrial placement.
Jack said: “In engineering, gaining experience at an early stage
of your career is vital. Through (summer) placements I gained
knowledge in both process engineering, and design and build. I
was able to take this knowledge I gained from these roles back
into my degree during my second and third year, which helped
me greatly with my industrial-based modules, such as my design
projects. During my third year I felt I had a gap in my knowledge
within project management and knew I would be completing
modules in this within my Master’s. Having had such positive
experiences with industrial placements I decided to look for a
year in industry where I could develop skills in project manage-
ment and become a more rounded engineer.”
For Emma the advantage it could give her upon graduating
was a key factor: “I thought doing a placement was really impor-
tant in order to get a real feel for what working in the industry
was like, and would give me an edge when it came to applying
at a graduate level. I also wasn’t entirely sure which direction I
wanted to take my degree and was hoping a placement year would
allow me time away from study to see different paths that I might
not have considered otherwise.”
For Pasha, her career path has been less clear so far: “As a
pharmacy drop-out, I was unsure of the exact career route
I wanted to pursue but engineering appealed to me due to the
industrial experience and variety of career streams it offered.
I understood that the industrial placement will provide good
means of attaining experience and open up career prospects
which I may not have considered.”
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 27
careers DGv2.indd 27
Today, when I interview prospective placement candidates for the
company I work at, I always find it interesting to explore their
hopes and expectations of a year in industry. Years ago I went into
my placement without a real concept of what life in a working,
industrial environment would be like, but with a knowledge that I
was there to learn as much as possible.
When questioned on this point, Pasha noted that expecta-
tions can be different to the reality of working: “Going into the
industrial placement year I expected all my focus would be on the
technicalities of engineering, which in all honesty is the push from
most universities. However, if anything, that is one element in an
array of experiences you attain. I found having a good dialogue
with my manager allowed me to steer my industrial experience in
multiple directions for example commercial, projects and manu-
facturing [with] hands-on experience.”
Emma reflected: “I think I was expecting to have very little
responsibility, maybe some desk-work shadowing people. I
was mostly looking to gain interpersonal skills, as I lacked
confidence in communicating and working within teams and was
hoping a placement would push me to be more confident in a work
place environment.”
Similarly, Jack said: “I went into each of my industrial expe-
riences in order to gain first-hand experience of engineering
problems and the process of solving and overcoming them. Not
only did I want to challenge my engineering principles I had previ-
ously learnt, I wanted to gain exposure to new fields. This led me
to apply for my role within my placement company.” 
All the interviewees said that they went into placements to gain
experience and use it in their final years, and then after graduating.
I asked them to tell me how it directly benefited them in their
final years of their course. Jack said: “Within my third year I
was required to complete two design-based projects and having
hands-on experience on sites made these a great deal easier. 
“Having worked in a professional environment for over a year I
learnt to structure my workload more efficiently; this taught me to
work more productively during my Master’s. As part of my course I
had another two design projects along with a thesis to complete. I
jack muirhead:
organised his
own placement
24/09/2020 12:55
 feature careers
emma markwell: gained confidence
in working in teams
found the structuring processes I had learnt were instrumental to
me achieving a first-class degree. I feel through industrial place-
ments you are able to learn and gain experiences that cannot be
taught in lectures and seminars. These soft skills and knowledge
that I gained were the foundations to allow me to reach my full
potential at university.”
Pasha highlighted a new ability to be able make practical links
between theory and application: “In the university bubble, the
practicalities of executing theory or more academic principles
were always blurry for me. Through my placement experience I
was able to better understand theory by application. For example,
the module “Separation Processes” at university introduced the
principles of separation by filtration, which only started to make
sense through membrane technologies and filtration methods
I was exposed to on placement. The principles of fluidised beds,
gas absorption and relevance of operating parameters/conditions
suddenly become more comprehendible.”
For Emma, the benefits were both in soft as well as hard skills,
which could be used in her final year. “I had definitely gained
confidence and was more efficient working within a team. This
was really apparent when it came to my design project group where
I took on more leadership roles, whereas before I would have defi-
nitely taken a back seat. I also had a well-needed improvement in
my overall organisation and ability to keep up with my workload.”
Employability factor
The aim of the vast majority of chemical engineering undergrad-
uates is to enter the workplace as soon as possible. One of the
common stated benefits of doing a year in industry is that it makes
you more employable. I wanted to see if this statement held up for
the interviewees.
When asked whether she thought her placement directly bene-
fited her after graduating, Emma couldn’t be more positive: “100%
yes. Going into my first interview for a graduate position I was
unrecognisable to the person attending placement interviews.
I am a more confident and well-rounded person, with an extra
year of experience to draw upon and I was able to accept a really
exciting opportunity because of it.”  Technologies & Solutions
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 28
careers DGv2.indd 28
Jack was equally sure: “Yes, having hands-on experience in both
project management and engineering has helped me in securing
a role working on some of the largest UK infrastructure projects
and again with my day-to-day responsibilities. From the get-go I
was able to settle into the company and quickly grasp my projects
thanks to my previous experience. Being able to draw from similar
scenarios I am able to understand new concepts around project
management and when being exposed to new fields of engineering
and I am able to approach them confidently.” 
Reinforcing that aspect of being able to hit the ground running,
Pasha commented: “Industrial experience most definitely directly
benefitted me as a fresh graduate. From understanding of basic
industrial jargon to technical plant design, report writing, opera-
tions manual writing and reporting key findings. The experience
allowed me to anchor basic pillars, general work ethics and more
importantly problem solving, as well as increasing my confidence
in handling technical data.”
Research from the Aston placement team shows that students
who do a placement perform better in their final year, achieve
better graduate outcomes, and earn a higher salary after grad-
uation. For engineering disciplines this be can up to £8,000/y
(US$10,250/y) more in the UK.
In fact, for engineering disciplines the benefits to students in
their final year and as graduates are particularly accentuated.
Reflecting back on the conversations with the interviewees,
it’s clear to see common threads emerging when it comes to the
benefits that they saw in doing their placements:
• gaining soft and hard skills which would directly improve
their chances of doing better in their final year(s);
• experience in an industrial setting which allowed them
to stand out from the crowd when it came to graduate
recruitment at a time when competition for roles is high;
• a chance to get some direction and perspective on what
their future paths might be and enable them to shape it.
For me personally, it is this last point that actually kept me in
chemical engineering. I saw that there were indeed countless
paths that I could take and a much wider spectrum of industries
that would be open to me. I found myself excited to be a chemical
engineer, and thrived in my final year.
In the last ten years, I have either directly hired, or been
involved in hiring, two placement students every year and have
interviewed countless undergraduates. It always astonishes me to
see how the placement students develop over the year and know
first-hand how it can benefit them in their final year, as well as
giving them the advantage when it comes to job searching.
Over a further two articles, I will be exploring placements in
terms of benefits to the employers, as well as looking into how
candidates can best go about the application process.
John Wilson AMIChemE is Operations Manager (Mobile), SUEZ Water
24/09/2020 12:55
 viewpoint unconscious bias

different dynamic
inexperienced hardworking black
like me

female
competent

religious
white
lazy

masculine incapable overweight

weak
strrong
gay
reserved old young fit

Tackling Hidden
Thoughts Within
Our sector must do more to improve unconscious bias
in the workplace, says Kelly Paul

U
NCONSCIOUS bias is one of those terms that most of us
have heard, while few of us really understand it. This
article looks at why the sector should be investing more
time in improving both understanding and practical action on
unconscious bias in the workplace.
It’s universally accepted that equality and diversity must
be front and centre of both recruitment and retention policies,
not least in the engineering sector. According to the Women’s
Engineering Society, the UK has the lowest percentage of female
engineering professionals in Europe, at less than 10%. Mean-
while the Royal Academy of Engineering reveals that just 6%
of people in professional engineering roles are from black and
minority ethnic backgrounds.
You’ll find no shortage of both engineering giants and SMEs
with robust equality and diversity strategies willing to speak out
about the challenges and indeed solutions. But it seems there’s a
silent, unspoken issue at play that could hamper these efforts –
our unconscious thoughts and behaviours. Let me explain.
Imagine that you’re in a meeting with two fellow chemical
engineers. One is older and talks with gravitas and assurance.
The other is younger and less outspoken. Your natural tendency
may well be to refer your questions to the older person, assuming
they are both more experienced and qualified. So, what if the
reality is that the older engineer is newly qualified with limited
experience in the sector, and it is in fact the younger person that
is best equipped to respond?
This automatic default to, for example, the older person in
a meeting is your unconscious bias taking effect. By its very
definition, this is a set of prejudices that is automatic and hidden
to us. It may result from a particular upbringing, or a past event.
Invariably, it’s something we don’t remember but that continues
to impact the here and now.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 29

viewpointdiversity DG.indd 29 24/09/2020 16:56

 viewpoint unconscious bias

Admitting the problem

While we might be forgiven for these “hidden thoughts” we
the diversity wheel
really can’t allow ourselves to be excused. Indeed, unconscious
bias in the workplace is such that it can affect staff recruitment, organisation
retention, motivation and scope for promotion. It’s there- dimensions
POSITION LEVEL/JOB GRADE
fore critical that we start concentrating not just on saying the
right thing but on thinking and feeling the right thing too. Our external
dimensions
hidden thoughts need to be firmly out in the open – recognised, GEOGRAPHIC
LOCATION
INCOME
TRAVEL/
challenged and addressed. But how? MARITAL
internal INTERNATIONAL
STATUS EXPERIENCES
At Air Products this is something that we are putting a
MANAGEMENT
STATUS
dimensions JOB
AGE GENDER
great deal of work into, rolling out an awareness and training
PARENTAL GENDER VOLUNTEER
programme for all our managers. Our aim is to help our teams STATUS RACE IDENTITY/ EXPERIENCES
EXPRESSION

understand how they themselves, and those around them, personality

SEXUAL
can acknowledge unconscious bias, and actively encourage APPEARANCE
ETHNICITY ORIENTATION
HOBBIES
inclusion.
PHYSICAL/MENTAL DIVISION/
A natural first step is considering the facets that make up our UNION
AFFILIATION
ABILITY DEPARTMENT/
UNIT/GROUP
own personality – after all, if we are to even begin to under- WORK
EXPERIENCE
RELIGION AND
SPIRITUALITY

stand the lens through which we see the world, it is essential
that we understand our own diversity.
To help demonstrate this, we show our teams the “diver-
sity wheel”. This sets out all of the elements that make up our
own diversity footprint – from our personality, through to
internal dimensions such as age, gender, ethnicity and sexual
orientation; external dimensions such as where we live, our
religion, marital and parental status and appearance; and
organisational factors such as our seniority, experience and
work location.
Once we are able to successfully demonstrate to our teams
how different we are all are, we can help them understand that
it is in these differences that unconscious bias occurs. In short,
we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
It may sound complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple.
People quickly understand from this that they may have a
natural tendency to listen more to those who are similar to
them, whether that’s in appearance, interests, or experi-
ence. We make assumptions and draw conclusions, and we
do so instantly! This is an understandable but potentially
devastating cycle of behaviour that stifles true diversity and
inclusion. Those around such an individual are likely to feel
diminished in confidence and self-worth, their ideas and
ability potentially overlooked.
Of course, recognising when these factors are at play is
just step one. The question then is, what do we do about it –
indeed, given the nature of the prejudice, are we really able to
do anything at all?
Taking action
The good news is that, once our unconscious bias has been
identified and recognised, we have a genuine opportunity to
change it. A good starting point is acknowledging a stereo-
type associated with one part of your own identity and then
thinking about how it does not apply to you.
The important takeaway here is that it can be frustrating to
EDUCATION MILITARY
BACKGROUND EXPERIENCE
WORK YEARS OF
LOCATION EXPERIENCE
be summed up by a stereotype or assumption that people make
about us. We have all experienced this. We are each unique
individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences. It can
become especially frustrating if someone automatically assigns
a stereotype to you, and essentially pre-judges you.
Once we understand that this affects us personally, we can
start to think about the wider implications of unconscious bias
and the way that feeling like an insider invariably leads to far
greater success than feeling like an outsider.
Perhaps one of the most striking realisations our colleagues
get from our training is recognition that while diversity is a
fact of life and difference will always exist, the benefits of
diversity do not simply occur. We have to make an active choice
to be inclusive, and inclusive behaviours must be proactive,
intentional, and ongoing.
There are four very simple habits we can develop in this
regard:
• slow it down – if we are distracted, tired, under pressure
or simply wanting to conform, we are far more likely
to resort to biased behaviour. Of course, sometimes
we have to make quick decisions although, wherever
we can, we should slow things down and consciously,
mindfully, take a more methodical approach to our
decision making.
• question and challenge your thinking – with the
ability to slow down the decision-making process,
comes the ability to test our assumptions about people,

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 30

viewpointdiversity DG.indd 30 24/09/2020 16:56

 viewpoint unconscious bias

situations, and certain jobs and tasks. We should take in biased behaviours. It takes courage to speak up, but
note of our own responses and reactions and identify it’s also important to lead by example and establish a
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Paul is UK&I Core Projects Team Lead at Air Products

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OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 31

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 feature heat transfer

BASE DEMAND

GRID DEFICIT GRID SURPLUS

DOWN TO -20% UP TO +20%

IMMEDIATE IMMEDIATE

-30% +30%
LONG TERM LONG TERM

Moving the Dial to

Decarbonise
David Wong and colleagues discuss how the world’s aluminium smelters
could enable the rapid uptake of renewables in global power systems

D
ECARBONISING the energy sector by 2050 is a key aim of
the International Energy Agency, as one of the outcomes
of the Paris Agreement. While renewables uptake must
continue and intensify, the unpredictable nature of new sources
of variable renewable energy, particularly solar and wind, poses
a major technical challenge for power systems worldwide. As
variable renewable energy increases, generation becomes less
dispatchable and more variable, so the question remains: “what
grid-scale solutions should be used to balance electricity demand
with generation?”
At Energia Potior, we see primary aluminium smelters
becoming significant pieces in the global grid-balancing
puzzle. The informed chemical engineer might ask however:
“Hold on! Isn’t this an industry renowned for highly-intensive and
inflexible energy demand? How could smelters be useful in balancing
power systems?” This is certainly true in the way smelters have
been designed and operated in the past – shutting power to a
smelter for even a few hours can lead to catastrophic freezing
of the cells’ molten electrolyte and metal contents, requiring
multimillion-dollar investments to restart operations.
This inflexibility in energy requirements is the primary reason
aluminium smelting is recognised as one of the big three hard-
to-abate sectors for CO2 emissions (along with cement and steel
production). Electricity generation from fossil fuels accounts for
around 80% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from aluminium
smelting globally. It is also the key driver behind the EnPot tech-
nology, which Energia Potior has spent the last decade developing.
EnPot is an enabling technology that converts a smelter from a

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 32

heattransfer DG xxTWEAK FIG 2.indd 32 24/09/2020 13:26

 feature heat transfer

huge inflexible energy consumer, to one that can modulate energy
use and support renewable grids. At the heart of the technology
is a mechanical system of heat exchangers, engineered to not
alter the electrochemical process, but allow smelters to modulate
energy use up and down without disrupting the internal heat
balance of the pots.
This moves smelters beyond the constant-baseload “straight-
jacket” to one that enables flexible operations and energy use, to
the order of ±20–30% of nominal baseload demand.
As introduced in issue 891 (September 2015, p52-54), this equips
smelters to act as “virtual power plants”, providing critical
demand-side response services to the grid, enabling greater
uptake of renewables. During times of insufficient generation in
the grid, the smelter can reduce power demand, minimising the
need for dispatchable backup generators. Conversely, smelters
can soak up excess power during times of surplus generation,
rather than curtailing generation (particularly from variable
renewable energy).
How EnPot works
To understand the technology we must first do a quick revision
of the Hall-Héroult smelting process (see issue 864, June 2013,
p45-47). Aluminium metal doesn’t exist naturally, so we first
refine bauxite to create alumina (Al2O3), then smelt alumina
into aluminium, by dissolving alumina in a bath of molten
cryolite (Na3AlF6, plus additives) so that electrolysis can occur,
typically at temperatures between 940–980°C. Direct current
(anywhere from 100–600 kA) is passed through the cells, with
liquid aluminium metal deposited at the cathode, while anode
carbon is oxidised to produce carbon dioxide (CO2).
Molten cryolite, however, dissolves not only alumina, but
everything else including carbonaceous and refractory pot
linings and steel shells. The only thing that can contain molten
cryolite on the sides of the cell is a “ledge” of frozen cryolite. A
temperature gradient is required to maintain a freezing point
isotherm, or else catastrophic failure will occur. With reduced
heat generation it won’t be long before the molten electrolyte
solidifies. Conversely, reducing the heat losses will melt the
protective layer.
Heat generation within the cell is via electrical resist-
ance, while heat loss is via fume extracted from the cell to gas
treatment centres (50%), and natural convection through the
sidewalls (35%) and bottom (15%) of the cell.
The electric current therefore performs two tasks, each
accounting for about 50% of the total energy used:
• to provide the energy for the electrochemical reaction; and
• to maintain the critical heat balance inside the pot.
This is why almost all smelters still operate under a constraint
of constant, 24/7 electricity supply, to maintain the balance
between the energy supplied and the natural heat loss to ensure
the protective frozen ledge is stable.
This is where EnPot technology comes in, enabling artificial
manipulation of the heat loss, to keep things in balance when
the energy input is varied. This is achieved by fitting patented
shell heat exchangers to the sidewalls of every cell. The system
draws ambient air over the sidewall through the heat exchang-
ers, using the air as a transfer fluid to absorb energy. Air is
drawn through ducting to an external suction fan (see Figure 1).
At the nominal smelter set-point, the fans will be working at
a slow rate to recreate the natural heat loss through the side-
walls of the cell (see Figure 2 – Neutral mode).

Figure 1: Schematic of the EnPot system [left] and actual implementation in TRIMET Essen smelter, Germany [right].

ENPOT MAIN DUCT TO

INSTALLATION SUCTION FAN

HOT AIR
HOT AIR SUCTION SUCTION
THROUGH DUCTS FROM POT
BRANCH BRANCH
DUCT DUCT

AMBIENT AIR INLET

FROM BASEMENT

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 33

heattransfer DG xxTWEAK FIG 2.indd 33 24/09/2020 13:26

 feature heat transfer

Increasing fan speed will create a greater cooling effect (Figure

Figure 2: Neutral, insulating and cooling modes of operation with
EnPot technology
NEUTRAL MODE
MINIMAL AIRFLOW PROVIDED BY SUCTION FAN
NEEDED TO MAINTAIN EXISTING HEAT BALANCE
INSULATING MODE
2 – Cooling mode) and allow for increased energy use (with
corresponding increased metal production, but also greater
heat generation). Decreasing fan speed will reduce the heat
transfer (Figure 2 – Insulating mode) and allow for energy use
to be reduced (with corresponding decrease in production and
heat generation, without freezing cells).
This controlled heat transfer enables a smelter to vary
its energy consumption within a ±20% range almost
instantaneously, for an indefinite time period (the range can be
extended to ±30% if transitioned over a longer period), while
maintaining the heat balance for stable, efficient cell operation.
The fans can even be turned off completely in the case of
a full power outage to the smelter, creating a “full insulation
mode”, to both reduce the harmful effects on operations, and
extend the duration that cells can go without power and still
safely restart.
The system can be retrofitted to any modern cell
technology, and can be installed on cells whilst in operation, or
during cell reconstruction.

Why modulate?
There are very real and necessary reasons to modulate energy
use if aluminium smelting is to remain viable, particularly in
countries not blessed with large amounts of hydro-electric
generation:
AS MUCH
AS -30%
1. The cheapest sources of power will be variable
renewable energy.
2. Power systems will become more volatile as variable
REDUCED SMELTER POWER CONSUMPTION renewable energy increases (spikes in power prices).
REDUCED FAN SPEED = INSULATION TO RETAIN HEAT 3. The value of base load is being replaced with the value
AND MAINTAIN HEAT BALANCE
of flexibility.
4. There is an unacceptable amount of CO2 being emitted
from fossil fuel electricity generation.
5. There is money to be made.
COOLING MODE 6. Increasing asset value.

We haven’t the space to examine these in depth, but we should

touch upon the last two, as they will be the primary drivers for
change within smelting companies in the short-term, and then
take a brief look at CO2 emissions.

UP TO
+30% Modulation services to the grid are valuable
EnPot’s insulating mode can be employed any time to turn
down power consumption without incurring an energy deficit
(pots remain in heat-balance), to avoid incurring high energy
INCREASED SMELTER POWER CONSUMPTION prices, or to “sell” power back to the grid and make a profit
INCREASED FAN SPEED = INCREASED COOLING TO from energy arbitrage (see Figure 3).
MAINTAIN HEAT BALANCE
Furthermore, during extremely high price power events
(up to A$14,000/MWh in Australia), EnPot extends the capacity
to offer full temporary shutdowns (0% load) with less risk of

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 34

heattransfer DG xxTWEAK FIG 2.indd 34 24/09/2020 13:26

 feature heat transfer

Figure 3: Long-term flexibility and modulation for an EnPot-enabled smelter

DAILY MODULATION WITH ENPOT
AMPERAGE LIMITS MAY BE CONSTRAINED BY PLANT AND GRID INFRASTRUCTURE
360 kA
+20% AMPERAGE
HIGH ENERGY USAGE
WHEN ELECTRICITY
COST IS LOW
300 kA
NORMAL
OPERATION
LOW ENERGY USAGE
WHEN ELECTRICITY
COST IS HIGH
240 kA
-20% AMPERAGE
SWING FROM HIGH TO LOW ENERGY
USAGE AT ANY TIME WITHOUT INSTABILITY

ENERGY CONSUMPTION CHANGED OVER DAILY CYCLE IN RESPONSE TO POWER COST AND AVAILABILITY

catastrophic impact to potlines, possibly up to 4 h per event.
In the case of a full shutdown the smelter will incur an energy
deficit and need a recovery period afterwards.
Conversely, EnPot enables increased production when there
is low-cost power in the system, which is predicted to increase
as the penetration of variable renewable energy increases
(see Figure 3). Note that some smelters will be limited by their
existing infrastructure in the amount they can go up without
modernising.
The fiscal reward for providing such services to the grid will
of course be market-dependent, but in the Australian National
Energy Market it has been calculated at around A$40m/y
for a smelter providing 100 MW of flex instantaneously, and
A$70m EnPot modulation system, and then have an asset worth
A$730m, which should be very appealing to shareholders.
Figure 4 shows the (amortised) cost of EnPot is significantly
cheaper than other options in an Australian case study (based
on assumptions in the Australian Energy Market Operator,
AEMO’s 2019 Integrated System Plan).
Early adopters
Flexing of energy use and production does represent a
massive paradigm shift in how smelters need to think and

Source: Energia Potior

500 MW of emergency response for up to 4 h. This would
Figure 4: Amortised capital cost of battery storage, PHS and
equate to around a 10% discount in power price for a smelter
EnPot installation on a 500 MW smelter in Australia
(assuming A$55/MWh).

300
275
Increasing asset value
AMORTISED CAPITAL COST (A$/kW/Y)

With aluminium smelting being marginal in many regions, 250

perhaps the fastest way for owners of smelters to increase their
asset value is to transform into a virtual power plant.
200 193
Figure 4 shows an “apples-for-apples” comparison of the
EnPot conversion cost for a smelter in Australia against other
grid-level storage options which provide similar shutdown or 150 143

“flex down” capacity. These include short-term (2–4 h) grid- 111

scale batteries, and longer-term (12–24 h) pumped hydro
100
storage or open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT). It is important to 70
note that EnPot enables a smelter to act as both a grid-scale
battery and a pumped hydro storage facility, two very expen- 50
sive facilities, for the price of one low-cost option. 19
The comparable capital cost of 100 MW pumped
0
hydro (long duration storage) plus 400 MWh large-scale BATTERY BATTERY PUMPED PUMPED OCGT ENPOT
STORAGE STORAGE HYDRO HYDRO
lithium-ion battery (up to 4 h storage) would be approximately (2 H) (4 H) (12 H) (24 H)

A$730m (noting efficiency losses for operation). This means

you could take a marginal smelter with low asset value, add a

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 35

heattransfer DG xxTWEAK FIG 2.indd 35 24/09/2020 13:26

 feature heat transfer
operate, however. One early adopter of this concept is TRIMET
Aluminium, an innovative European producer with its “virtual
battery” supplying demand-side response to the European
grid.
TRIMET’s operation in Essen, Germany is already target-
ing ±25% flexibility over 48 h periods, following EnPot
installation on a 120-cell potline. With a baseload 93 MW
per potline, this provides an effective demand-side response
capacity of 1,120 MWh. TRIMET’s Hamburg smelter is also
undertaking a pilot implementation. The result is not only
mutual economic benefits to both smelter and grid, but also
social benefits in enabling renewables uptake.
application
Primary aluminium smelting uses 3% of all electricity gener-
ation globally and this is projected to rise with strong global
demand for aluminium – even considering the impact of Covid-
19, a compound annual growth rate of 3.8% is predicted though
to 2050.
In 2019, over 70% of electricity used for aluminium smelting
was from fossil-fuel sources (30 years ago this was around
40%). This trend in adding to global greenhouse gas emis-
sions needs to shift, as does the past insistence by smelters
on constant power load, if the overall carbon footprint of our
industry is to improve.
With many of the 43 countries where smelters are located
expressing strong aims to reduce reliance on fossil-fuel based
power, and climate change meaning even the normally reliable
hydro-electric sources are suffering large seasonal variations,
there is an urgent need for aluminium smelters (and indeed
all large industrial users) to adopt energy flexibility into their
operating paradigms.
There is no debate that the demand-side response large
industrial users can bring to the power system is critically
important going forward. The International Energy Agency,
in its 2019 “China Power System Transformation” report,
estimated that if heavy industry provided significant demand-
side response under a sustainable development scenario, the
Chinese power system by 2035 would be 3% cheaper to operate
(saving US$7bn) annually.
The question becomes how will aluminium smelters adapt
to a low-carbon world, and where will the smelters of the
future source their energy?
Decarbonising Scope 2 emissions
Retrofitting EnPot technology also opens the door for smelters
that derive their power from non-renewable sources to reduce
their overall carbon footprint. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol
(GHGP) accounting for Scope 2 corporate emissions allows
for contracted sources of power when measuring greenhouse
gas emissions. Thus, having at least some contracted power
from renewables places smelters on a pathway to emissions
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 36
heattransfer DG xxTWEAK FIG 2.indd 36
reduction, something that will become increasingly important
as consumers of end-use products seek to find out the true
carbon footprint of their spending decisions. Believe it or not,
the carbon footprint of a new car purchase may become more
important than the colour!
Remaining challenges
Despite the significant potential for smelters to dial up and
down to operate as a virtual power plant, one of the chal-
lenges we’ve had is that a significant portion of the value is
to the power system itself. Therefore, it’s important that
the value EnPot brings is captured and shared across the
stakeholders, including the electricity generator, grid-
operator, energy market regulator, government, and
consumers.
In our conversations with stakeholders, it is becoming
evident that smelters are unlikely to have the expertise, or want
to take on the risk of trading directly on the energy market, on
a 24/7 basis. However, power generators and market operators
are well suited to perform this function as a core part of their
business. Perhaps the ideal way forward is for smelters to trade
an energy modulation schedule (tailored to each smelter) for
power price discounts.
While we see smelters moving to flexible operation as the
next major technological shift in the industry, another signif-
icant challenge is the pace at which this industry typically
adopts new innovations (very slowly over decades). Power
modulation will need to be adopted at a much faster pace if
many smelters are to remain viable.
Whilst the EnPot technology is adaptable to any cell design,
there are many bespoke elements, from hardware configura-
tion, to smelter operations. Therefore, the exact performance
gains achievable are also smelter-specific, posing a challenge
to full implementation without trials first. This challenge will
recede once smelters of varying amperage ranges are operating
and reporting results with the new technology.
A new dialogue
For aluminium smelters to become integral components of
modern, renewable power systems, a new dialogue between
stakeholders is required – one where all parties can benefit,
and the value of flexibility is shared. Most importantly it needs
to be remembered that while technology enables the solution,
only people solve the problem. In this respect there is a crucial
role to be played by those supporting the technology imple-
mentation, and in educating the industry professionals of
the future.
David Wong AMIChemE is Director at Atmolite Consulting; Mark
Dorreen is Chief Executive, Geoff Matthews is Energy Sector Lead,
and Nick Depree is Senior Design Engineer at Energia Potior.
24/09/2020 13:26
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PERRYHAS
PERRY HASBEEN
BEENBUYING
BUYING&&SELLING
SELLINGUSED
USEDPROCESS
PROCESSEQUIPMENT
EQUIPMENTSINCE
SINCE1932.
1932.
WEHAVE
WE HAVEAANUMBER
NUMBEROFOFOPTIONS
OPTIONSAVAILABLE
AVAILABLESO
SOTHAT
THATYOU
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THE
THEMAXIMUM
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YOUR
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DISPOSALOPTIONS:
OPTIONS:
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TRADE-IN

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AGREEMENT——ASSET
ASSETDISPOSAL
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OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 37

heattransfer DG xxTWEAK FIG 2.indd 37 24/09/2020 13:26

 PR ACTICAL INSIGHTS INTO ON-THE-JOB PROBLEMS
feature heat transfer
rules
of thumb 1. tanks and vessels
Stephen Hall discusses the golden rules for design
V
ESSELS provide many functions in a chemical plant. They
have many forms and sizes, and are fabricated from nearly
any structural material. Vessels contain valuable inven-
tory that can be hazardous to life and property if released, so it’s
important for process engineers to pay close attention to the use,
sizing, and design of all of the vessels in the plant. This article
presents some useful rules of thumb for vessel design.
You should strive to minimise the size of vessels, while main-
taining the desired plant functionality. The primary reasons to
minimise vessel size (and number) fall into two categories: safety
and cost.
Safety of vessels mostly pertains to the integrity of the tank, its
ability to fully contain its fluids in the face of process upsets, degra-
dation of the tank or components, physical damage, and external
events such as fire. Another important consideration is how to safely
access the inside of the vessel for inspection and maintenance after
it is installed. Asphyxiation is a concern: well-positioned access
flanges should be provided along with a means to ventilate the tank
interior and install personnel harnesses. Ergonomics are another
aspect for discussion, to include operational, sampling, instrument
calibration, and maintenance procedures.
Balance plant operating requirements with economic consid-
erations, but never sacrifice safety to save money. Operating
requirements are derived from the material and energy balances,
anticipated throughput variations (eg weekend shutdowns, discon-
tinuous flow through unit operations), physical size of the facility
(eg ceiling heights, door widths), size of trucks or rail cars deliver-
ing raw materials, desired inventory level (eg 1 week, 1 month), hold
times for inspection, and release of product, etc.
Vessel size has a ripple effect on the size of piping, pumps, heat
exchangers, agitators, and other related vessels. Ancillary costs
such as structural supports, skirts, ladders, platforms, insula-
tion, and painting are directly affected. The maximum allowable
diameter of a shop-fabricated cylindrical vessel is usually deter-
mined by how the vessel will be transported to the plant site.
Carefully assess any vessel that is proposed to be in the 12-14 ft
diameter range to be sure it can be transported and installed.
Larger tanks will likely need to be fabricated at the plant site.
Inventory held in the tanks, whether raw material, interme-
diate, or final product, is an operating cost that can significantly
affect the cost of goods sold. Other operating costs are affected by
vessel size, including operator hours, cooling water, steam, and
power.
Large atmospheric storage tanks such as the kind you see at oil
refineries are designed by specialists who follow strict codes. These
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 38
thumbhall DG.indd 38
range in size up to 200 m3, with diameters often reaching 20 m.
Smaller (<60,000 L) atmospheric tanks and pressure-rated
vessels are often specified by generalist process and mechanical
engineers. The following “rules of thumb” may be useful:
• They must be designed, fabricated, and tested in accordance
with applicable codes.
• The user is responsible for specifying loadings that
are used to calculate the vessel wall thicknesses and
reinforcements. Factors include: internal/external pressure;
ambient and operational temperatures; static pressure
and mass of contents in operating and test conditions;
wind and earthquake conditions; reaction forces and
moments resulting from supports, attachments, piping,
agitators, thermal expansion, etc; corrosion; fatigue; and
decomposition of unstable fluids.
• The aspect ratio (vertical straight-side height divided by
diameter) is usually between 1:1 to 1.5:1. Taller vessels,
with aspect ratios ranging to about 4:1, are used when
necessary to maximise heat transfer through a jacket, to
maximise contact time of a sparged gas, or for other process
requirements.
• ASME F&D heads (torispherical) are usually specified for
pressures to 20 bar. Ellipsoidal (2:1) heads are used for
pressures from 20–100 bar. Very high pressure applications,
above 100 bar, utilise hemispherical heads. Conical bottoms
are used for some crystallisers when it is desired that
precipitates flow freely to the bottom outlet nozzle.
• The working volume of an agitated vessel should be about
80% of the volume measured at the top tangent line. If the
aspect ratio exceeds 2:1 then multiple impellers may be
needed.
• Determine heating and cooling duty using factors including
control of process exotherms, heat-up and cool-down loads
(time-based), boiling, thermal losses to the environment,
and heat input from agitators and pumps.
Stephen Hall is Chief Process Engineer at Genesis AEC, a US design and
construction service provider in the life science industry. He authored
Rules of Thumb for Chemical Engineers, 6th Edition (Elsevier, 2018).
Disclaimer: This article is provided for guidance alone. Expert
engineering advice should be sought before application.
24/09/2020 16:54
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EUROPEAN STANDARD EQUIPMENT— UNITS IN STOCK — PROMPT DELIVERY

EQUIPMENT WE BUY & SELL:

CENTRIFUGES — DRYERS — EVAPORATORS — FILTERS — HEAT EXCHANGERS
MILLS — MIXERS & BLENDERS — REACTORS — TANKS & VESSELS —PLANTS & LINES

CONTACT US TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN SAVE TIME & MONEY ON YOUR PROCESS EQUIPMENT.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 39

thumbhall DG.indd 39 24/09/2020 16:54

 feature food & drink

A Clean Bill of Health

Tony Hasting discusses cleaning and disinfection of food process plant

O
BSERVING some large tubular heat exchangers during
a university vacation course at an oil refinery in the late
1960s, I asked how often they were cleaned and was told
“once a year during the annual shutdown”. When a saucepan of
milk is heated on a cooker, it takes a couple of minutes for it to
boil, and when poured there is a deposit on the bottom of the pan,
a mixture of protein, fat, sugars and minerals. Both examples
are a result of fouling, albeit with quite different timescales and
both require cleaning to bring the surfaces back to their original
condition.
There are two main types of fouling within the food industry,
those caused by heat, and those that are unrelated to heat. Fouling
of equipment such as heat exchangers can result in both a loss
of heat transfer performance and an increase in pressure drop. At
the other end of the temperature scale, freezing can also create
fouling. For example, prior to freezing, peas are washed and then
blanched to inactivate the enzymes that degrade the peas during
frozen storage. They are then cooled with a water spray and passed
across a vibrating screen to remove residual water. However, a
significant amount of moisture remains, and freezes within the
freezer, which then requires defrosting every few hours.
Other areas where cleaning may be critical include prior to a
production shutdown or a product changeover. This is particularly
important where both allergen and allergen-free products are
produced on the same line. Dried soups, for example, may have
many ingredients of both types and the cleaning regime applied
will vary depending on the risk of the product changeo-
ver. If an allergen-containing product is followed by another
allergen product the risk is low, similarly if allergen-free follows
allergen-free. The highest risk occurs when an allergen product
is followed by one that is allergen-free, thus requiring a far more
rigorous cleaning regime.
Cleaning may also be required for microbiological reasons, for
example where a product has been pasteurised and hence a residual
level of organisms remains. During a production run there may
be an increase in total numbers in the final product and to ensure
the numbers are kept within specification, regular cleaning will
be required. In the 1980s, a typical frozen food line would run for
two shifts, ie 16 hours, and cleaning would take place during the
night shift. This resulted in a low production efficiency of 66%
and by improving the design, operation and cleaning of the line,
run lengths of 60 hours with 4 hours cleaning could be achieved
without compromising safety, a production efficiency of over 90%.
It is therefore essential to understand the challenges posed by the
production processes so that the appropriate cleaning schedules
can be specified.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 40

foodhastings DG.indd 40 24/09/2020 13:11

 feature food & drink
A necessary evil?
For the factory production team, cleaning is usually seen as “a
necessary evil” because it is:
• non-productive, resulting in plant downtime;
• time consuming;
• poorly understood – “out of sight, out of mind”;
• aggressive – cleaning regimes, for example, use hot highly
alkaline/acids, as well as biocides;
• corrosive, hence the potential for high maintenance costs;
and
• subject to safety issues, both for personnel and equipment.
However, cleaning is essential for food quality, safety and peace
of mind.
Approaches to cleaning will depend on the type of equipment,
whether open or closed, and particularly the ease of access to the
product contact surfaces (see Table 1).
Cleaning in place
The following examples will focus mainly on cleaning in place, or
CIP, although the principles are relevant for open plant cleaning
with both involving a combination of mechanical and chemical
forces to achieve the desired end result. Cleaning in place is the
circulation of chemicals and/or water through plant that remains
assembled as for production. All product contact surfaces are
cleaned and where necessary disinfected or sterilised to an
acceptably high and consistently reproducible standard.
The main stages in a CIP process are:
• Product recovery/rinsing – removal of residual product
from the line or equipment usually using warm water and
where practical, recovering as much product as possible to
minimise effluent.
• Cleaning – Removal of any remaining product deposits
from the equipment surfaces by circulating detergents
through the plant. After the cleaning stage, the detergent
will usually be recovered.
• Final rinse with potable water – Removal of chemicals
from the line with potable quality water.
• Disinfection/sterilisation – Reduction (disinfection)
or elimination (sterilisation) of microorganisms in the
plant to ensure the appropriate hygiene standards are
maintained.
The key factors involved are time; detergents and biocides;
temperature; and flowrate.
Time
The time required for effective cleaning will depend on the
process and how heavily the line or equipment is fouled. The aim
is to minimise time, and maximise production efficiency at an
acceptable cost.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 41
foodhastings DG.indd 41
Table 1: Examples of open and closed plant equipment
Open plant equipment Closed plant equipment
Examples include: Examples include:
• Conveyor belts • Pipework
• Small plant components • Heat exchangers
such as filters and instruments • Closed tanks/vessels
• Floors/ walls • Evaporators
• Open tanks/vessels
Open plant cleaning approaches: Cleaning in place (CIP):
• Dismantling • Cleaning without
• Manual cleaning dismantling plant
• Detergent bath soak • Automatic
• Foam/gel application via
spray lance
• High pressure spray jet
Detergents and biocides
An effective detergent will be able to wet, penetrate, and react with
the soil. The reaction products must then avoid redeposition onto
the cleaned surface. Detergents are usually a combination of chem-
icals such as surfactants to reduce surface tension and enhance
penetration into the soil. Inorganics such as sodium hydroxide
are widely used to remove the organic components of the soil –
such as proteins and fats – being effective and relatively low cost,
although it does not have good rinsing characteristics. It is usually
circulated as a first stage in the cleaning process followed by a
rinse and then an acid step to remove the mineral components
such as calcium salts. For this step, inorganic acids such as nitric,
phosphoric or a combination of the two are typically used. In some
cases, single-stage detergents are available, formulated to remove
both organic and inorganic soils in the same step and thus save
time.1
Biocides are strong oxidising chemicals such as sodium
hypochlorite or peracetic acid, the former being potentially corro-
sive to stainless steel, the latter being increasingly widely used.
Concentrations of 100–250 mg/L are typical for disinfection with
an order of magnitude increase required for sterilisation.
Temperature
Increasing temperature will increase the rate of reaction between
detergent and soil. However, care must be taken to ensure that
this does not have an adverse effect on the equipment, such as
hardening of gaskets, which may lead to leakage. For disinfec-
tion, temperatures of 70–90oC are typical with 120–140oC used for
sterilisation.
Flowrate (fluid velocity)
Flowrate or fluid velocity is key in delivering the detergent to
the soil on the product contact surfaces, as well as removing the
reaction products back into the bulk solution. Milk fouling studies
using a plate heat exchanger have shown the strong influence of
fluid velocity on the time to clean1, with time required decreas-
ing significantly as the velocity was increased from 0.1 to around
24/09/2020 13:11
 feature food & drink
1.5 m/s, beyond which there was little or no additional benefit.
The rapid reduction in cleaning time suggested that the boundary
layer thickness and the diffusion of the detergent into the fouling
deposits was the rate-controlling step. However, as the velocity
increased above 1.5 m/s, the reaction rate between detergent and
soil became the rate-controlling step.
The 1.5 m/s figure is widely recommended as the optimum
cleaning velocity. However, it may be unachievable in practice
due to, for example, an excessive pressure drop. A more practical
approach is to maximise the velocity during cleaning, as even a
modest increase from 0.2 to 0.3 m/s will be beneficial.2 The original
work 1 was carried out each day at the same time, with fresh
milk from a small local dairy herd, anticipating that this would
minimise day-to-day variations in fouling. However, this was not
the case and highlighted the variable behaviour of complex food
fluids, such as milk, when heated.
The study also evaluated the effect of detergent concentra-
tion on cleaning time and unexpectedly showed that there was an
optimum concentration of sodium hydroxide, although the effect
was not as pronounced as for fluid velocity. The usual approach
for difficult soils was to increase the detergent concentration but
this study suggested that reducing detergent concentration should
also be evaluated when trying to optimise cleaning. One factory
investigation I took part in resulted in the detergent concentra-
tion being reduced by half without any adverse effect on cleaning
performance. However, it was still impossible to persuade the
client that cleaning the process water tanks weekly for 2 hours
with 80oC nitric acid was excessive and risked corrosion.
Process operation and control
As industry is increasingly consolidating production into fewer,
larger-capacity plants, automation becomes increasingly
Figure 1: Valve layout to prevent chemical contamination
CIP SUPPLY
V1 OPEN V1 CLOSED
V2
V2 CLOSED OPEN
V3 OPEN V3 CLOSED
CLEANING PRODUCT
SIMILAR VALVE ARRANGEMENT AS CIP SUPPLY CIP RETURN
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 42
foodhastings DG.indd 42
important. One of the largest dairy operations in the UK is designed
to process up to 1bn L/y of milk into a range of products and supply
many of the major supermarkets. The equipment list for this
operation is substantial:
• 4 Fresh milk plants
• 3 Cream plants
• 2 Sterilisers
• 4 Pasteurisers
• 1 Thermiser – a milder heating process than pasteurisation
• 2 Filtration plants
• 12 Separators
• 55 Storage vessels
• 8 Fillers
• ~4,000 valves
• ~200 pumps
• 4 Dedicated CIP systems for: tanker, raw milk,
pasteurisers, and finished milk
The number of CIP systems is partly due to the scale of the oper-
ation but mainly to ensure separation between raw and finished
milk equipment with a separate unit for the pasteurisers, which
contains the boundary in microbiological terms between raw
and finished product. The CIP system will include tanks holding
detergents, water, biocides, as well as pumps, valves and instru-
mentation to monitor the various sequences being delivered to the
process equipment. CIP systems are usually located in a separate
area away from production equipment for reasons of personnel
safety.
Engineering design of cleaning processes takes account of the
types of equipment being cleaned and particularly the flows and
pressures that will be required. For instance, cleaning a pasteur-
iser is likely to require a higher pressure and flow than a storage
tank. Any line modifications should also take account of potential
effects on cleaning. In one factory, I investigated a CIP problem
that the engineering team had been unable to resolve. After several
hours walking along the line I identified the problem as being a
recently-installed flow meter monitoring the flow of the viscous
product. The required CIP flow was much higher than for produc-
tion and the flowmeter provided sufficient additional pressure
drop to reduce the CIP flow and hence the cleaning efficiency.
Identification of the problem was not helped by the flowmeter
being installed in a line 8 m above ground level.
For many process lines there will be areas being cleaned, while
production is continuing elsewhere. Ensuring that chemical and
product are securely separated is therefore critical. Equipment
items with similar geometries such as tanks tend to be grouped
together and supplied from the same CIP line. For example,
consider two product storage tanks, one containing product and
the other being cleaned. There is a common CIP feed line to the
top of both tanks. A single valve seat is clearly insufficient protec-
tion against leakage, which led to the valve design shown in
Figure 1. Termed a double seat or safety break valve, SBV, it is effec-
tively three valves within a single housing with a drain valve, V2,
24/09/2020 13:11
 feature food & drink

between V1 and V3. V2 is open during production so any chemical

leakage from V1 will drain via V2.
Figure 2: Fouling characteristics during production
Automation provides essential information on the consistency
of the production and cleaning processes. With closed equipment it
is difficult to inspect the internal surfaces and monitoring the key INDUCTION
PERIOD
parameters affecting performance is part of the ongoing validation
of the cleaning process. FOULING RATE

PRESSURE
I once investigated a plate heat exchanger3 used to pasteur- PERIOD
ise a range of food products, where substantially shorter and
inconsistent run lengths were observed with some products. This
inconsistency was disruptive to production, causing a potential
bottleneck and loss of efficiency. The factory assumed the problem
was caused by variations in the raw materials. A SCADA system
was available, providing information on process conditions across
the whole line. TIME
Fouling of heat exchangers can be monitored by tempera-
ture difference and pressure drop, both which increase as fouling
Fouling period Run length before
occurs. Monitoring can indicate whether the fouling is localised or run induction period (h) gradient (bar/h) cleaning (h)
more evenly distributed within the system. If fouling is localised,
1 2.0 0.21 14.0
the pressure drop will tend to increase more rapidly than tempera-
2 3.0 0.20 15.8
ture difference. In this case the temperature probes were unreliable
3 2.5 0.19 19.8
and, in my view, worse than no probes at all. The system had been
designed to provide a constant feed pressure and flowrate to the 4 8.0 0.22 20.3

heat exchanger, and thus fouling could in principle be detected
by the fall in the outlet pressure. To simplify the investigation, I
decided to focus purely on the most problematic product and was
immediately surprised that there had been no attempt to analyse
the data from the line.
This was due to much of it simultaneously appearing on the
computer screen as a confusing mass of different colours. By mini-
mising the number of data items on the screen and expanding the
timescale, I got a more realistic and useful picture of events. The
outlet pressure followed classical fouling behaviour with an induc-
tion step at constant pressure followed by a constant fouling rate
period, during which the overall pressure drop increased. Each
production run could therefore be characterised by the length of
the induction period and the gradient of the falling rate period
(see Figure 2).
This showed that the inconsistent run lengths were almost
exclusively due to differences in the induction period, which ranged
from 0-8 h. My experience suggested inconsistent cleaning as the
most likely cause, and improvements in the efficiency and consist-
ency of the cleaning process were recommended and successfully
implemented. This resulted in a near doubling of production run
lengths prior to cleaning. In addition, it highlighted the value of
looking for simple ways to evaluate problem causes and potential
solutions.
Companies are continually looking to reduce costs, often by
subcontracting various factory operations to third parties. Typical
examples are energy management, water and effluent treatment,
and in particular cleaning. This approach does, however, carry
risks for product security, with for example chemical companies
overseeing and managing the total cleaning process.
5 0 0.20 10.7
Conclusions
Cleaning plays an essential role in ensuring the product from a
manufacturing process achieves the desired quality standards
on a consistent and cost-effective basis. It needs to be integrated
into the mechanical and process design from the start of a project,
rather than a final process incorporated into a fully specified
plant. It has to strike a balance between quantitative factors such
as production efficiency and service costs as well as the qualita-
tive risk assessment of potential hygiene failures and the financial
consequences.
Tony Hasting CEng FIChemE is a Consultant at Tony Hasting Consulting;
a chemical engineer with 45 years’ experience of working and consulting
in the food and drink industry.
References
1. Timperley, DA and Smeulders, CNM (1988) “Cleaning of dairy HTST
plate heat exchangers,” Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology,
41, 4-7.
2. Hasting, APM (2008), “Designing for cleanability” in Tamime,
A (ed), Cleaning-in-Place: Dairy, Food and Beverage Operations,
Blackwell Publishing, 81-106, UK.
3. Hasting, APM (2012), “The hygienic design of food process-
ing plant” in Brennan JG and Grandison AS (ed), Food Processing
Handbook Vol 2, 533-557, Wiley-VCH.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 43

foodhastings DG.indd 43 24/09/2020 13:11

 feature safety

The domino fallacy: Only by looking sideways, by peering

forward beyond the immediacy of the most obvious view,
can we see what happens after the first domino falls

All the Dominoes Fall

A long-term moral perspective to process safety is needed, says Marc Reid

I
N the autumn of 2011, a light wind carried my father’s ashes
from my fingertips into the sea. It was the cold, bitter end to
a long battle waged against his post-traumatic stress. Long
before alcohol claimed him, my late father had survived one of
the worst process safety disasters the world has ever known.
On 6 July 1988, over 20 years before his death, he was working
aboard the Piper Alpha oil rig when it exploded in the North Sea.
The accident killed 167 men and left just 61 survivors. Aged
25, Mark Archibald Reid jumped from a burning helipad, and
succumbed to the horrors aged 48.
But it wasn’t until 30 years after the accident, when I got the
chance to speak to an audience about this story, that I noticed
something profound. Something beyond Piper Alpha, beyond
my father, beyond me. Through the kind and captured gaze
of the crowd to whom I spoke, I saw that I was filling their
heads with a missing piece of the safety puzzle. My painfully
personal connection to one survivor of a process safety failure
has, in turn, inspired a new perspective on how we might
improve safety culture in chemistry, on both small and large
scales. While media and incident reports provide a focus on
consequences of accidents in the short-term, we do not tend to
consider the consequences in the long-term. And, in my view,
the rarity of looking at the long-term moral implications of
an accident might be related to what happens when you tell a
young child to sacrifice one marshmallow now for the promise
of two marshmallows later.
Short-term Thinking is a Long-term Challenge
A now infamous psychology experiment at Stanford University
in the 1970s asked what would become of children who could
resist the urge for the instant gratification of one marshmallow
immediately, and instead be rewarded with two marshmallows
later. Increasingly sophisticated versions of this experiment
have shown that individuals and companies who are able to
think of longer-term rewards over short-term immediate gains
are more successful.
In a related line of thought, consider the following options.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 44

safetyreid DG.indd 44 24/09/2020 16:52

 (C)Aberdeen Journals feature safety
survivors: Mark archibald reid (centre)
was one of 61 to survive the accident
• You can have $50 right after reading this article, or $60
next month. Which would you prefer?
• You can have $50 12 months from now, or $60 13 months
from now. What’s your choice?
Whatever the case, you probably found your first decision was
harder than the second. Many people prefer the instantaneous
reward of $50 now versus $60 in a month’s time. In the short-
term, right now versus one month from now seems compar-
atively distant and not worth the pain of waiting. But when it
comes to $50 in 12 months, or $60 in 13 months, well, you’ve
waited a whole 12 months already. One more month won’t hurt,
right?
While media and incident reports provide
a focus on consequences of accidents in the
short-term, we do not tend to consider the
consequences in the long-term
Such psychological studies have revealed that longer-term
thinking patterns lead to more investment in the future and
reduced risk taking. On the basis of Construal-Level Theory 1,
the more distant an event is in time, the more likely it is to
be viewed vaguely and abstractly. When it comes to envisag-
ing vivid details, it’s harder for our minds to do this for distant
events than for near-future events. As behavioural psycholo-
gist Dan Gilbert said about the future of humanity: “If we are not
here in 10,000 years…it is because we underestimated the odds of our
future pains, and overestimated the value of our present pleasures.”
In the practice of process safety, we plan to maintain the
pleasures of our work by preventing future pains. But how far
in time does this gaze actually extend?
Safety Tools Capturing Short-term Effects
There are several conceptual risk-based frameworks used
to understand the additive nature of events before and after
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 45
safetyreid DG.indd 45
a major accident. However, there is no clear framework that
encourages people to look past the immediacy of the events
before and after an accident. Before we get to that, let’s look at
two complementary tools that, together, capture the causes and
consequences surrounding the short-term timeline of a major
accident.
The Swiss cheese model
Perhaps the most famous risk-based safety model for concep-
tualising pre-accident events is James Reason’s Swiss Cheese
Model. Here, the preventative “barriers” in place to prevent
an accident are represented by thin slices of cheese. The more
slices of cheese, the more layers of protection we have, and
the lower the risk of a major accident taking place. The holes
in each layer of this conceptual cheese represent the unlikely
cases in which an event could penetrate the first layer of
protection and increase the risk of an accident occurring. With
several slices of cheese stacked together, it should be highly
unlikely for holes across all slices of cheese to align and present
a clear path towards disaster (see Figure 1). It is, nonetheless,
these very unlikely alignments of holes in cheese that lead to
disasters like Piper Alpha, and myriad reported process safety
failures that fill chemical engineering textbooks.
The Swiss Cheese Model does not necessarily assume that,
if one barrier fails, all other protective barriers will fail, too.
Having said this, protective barriers can fail in succession. The
Swiss Cheese Model is also flexible. It is not particular to large-
scale accidents and can also apply in small-scale chemical
research laboratories, or in the practice of medicine. So, if holes
in cheese help our understanding of events occurring before an
accident, how is it we grasp what can happen after an accident?
We go from layers of cheese to stacks of dominoes.
The Domino Effect
The Domino Effect is used to describe cascade-style action
at risk of occurring immediately after an accident. It focusses
Figure 1: A representation of James Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model
HOLE IN CHEESE =
ROOT OPPORTUNITY FOR SAFETY
CAUSE BARRIER TO BE CIRCUMVENTED
LAYER OF CHEESE =
BARRIER AGAINST ACCIDENT
ARROW =
DEFLECTED ARROW = ALIGNMENT OF
POTENTIAL ACCIDENT
MITIGATED BY SAFETY
EVENT LEADING
TO AN ACCIDENT
BARRIER
ACCIDENT
24/09/2020 16:52
 Alex Gakos / Shutterstock.com feature safety
on the impact and quantifiable likelihood of secondary asset (or
equipment) damage being caused by the initial accident. If the
accident itself is the flick of your finger as it crashes into the
first domino, the secondary damage lies in all the dominoes that
fall, each colliding with the one behind itself. It’s a concept that
is directly applicable to the events occurring in series after the
first explosion aboard Piper Alpha. All told, four consecutive blasts
engulfed the platform in under two hours. Far more recently, on
4 August 2020, the colossal ammonium nitrate explosion at a port
facility in Beirut destroyed a nearby grain store and surround-
ing infrastructure over a 10 km radius. These examples show very
clearly what can happen beyond the epicenter of a major accident.
Whilst the Domino Effect is a well-established
theory... it does not consider the long-term
moral costs of accidents
Whilst the Domino Effect is a well-established theory that
does an extraordinary job of assessing the risks to assets on
densely-packed manufacturing sites, it does not consider the
long-term moral costs of accidents, nor (in balance) was the
concept designed for this purpose. Alongside shorter-term
considerations framed by the Swiss Cheese Model and the
Domino Effect, there is the opportunity to introduce a comple-
mentary domino-style concept that serves to stimulate a
longer-term view of accidents. From the dust of my father’s
remains, there is a way to provide motivation for people to
make all possible protective safety arrangements, keeping the
dim and distant long-term risks in the front of our minds.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 46
safetyreid DG.indd 46
devastation: aftermath of the recent
ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut, Lebanon
The Domino Fallacy: Looking Beyond the First
to See the Others that Fall Behind
The effects of an accident like Piper Alpha can carry on through
time, long after the initial accident, and long after the mainstream
media has moved on. The aches, the pains, the mental struggles,
all fall like dominoes, one after the other, all after the first domino
falls on the day of the disaster. When an accident is reported, it
can be compared to looking at a domino square in the face. We can
stand face-to-face with a domino and analyse the details, defects,
and numbers engraved on its surface. Only by looking sideways, by
peering forward beyond the immediacy of the most obvious view,
can we see what happens after the first domino falls. This is what
I am calling The Domino Fallacy: the tendency to forget or fail to
account for the long-term moral costs of an accident whose short-
term impact is clearly documented. In the case of my father, his
escape from Piper Alpha was simply the first domino to fall.
Behind the newspaper-worthy details of the event lay the
unheard trauma of a family life forever changed by an inferno.
The educational details would only become clear over decades,
not days. In an accident scenario, the other dominoes falling
after the first might be the struggles of recovering from
physical injury, the mental anguish of reliving the horrors,
the strain placed on family and friends. Every process safety
disaster has such untold stories tied to it. Accidents outside the
realm of oil and gas, or large-scale chemical manufacturing
are no different. In any accident, after the first domino tips
over, all the dominoes fall. But are we using this point to its full
potential, or are we still choosing to eat one marshmallow now
rather than waiting on the reward of two later? Where can we
find the substance behind the Domino Fallacy?
24/09/2020 16:52
 feature safety

University lost an arm as a result of a compressed gas

Figure 2: The Domino Fallacy, and why we should encourage
cylinder explosion. She had not been appropriately
longer-term thinking in safety
trained for working with such units.2 Whilst the likely

ER S
cause was thought to be static electrical ignition, an

M
-T E
G G
N EN
independent report cited a deep lack of safety culture as

LO L L
G A
IN H
a core issue at the institution.
G NC
ER DE
IMMEDIATE • In China, a hydrogen leak led to an explosion which
EMHID

VISIBLE DETAILS
OF AN ACCIDENT seriously injured and subsequently killed researcher
Meng Xiangjian at Tsinghua University. He was working
alone. In this case, the struggle to balance research
budgets with funding for adequately up-to-date and
TAKING
LONGER-TERM
BROKEN safe equipment was highlighted.4
RELATIONSHIPS
VIEWPOINT • Perhaps one of the best-known cases of chemistry lab
SURVIVOR’S GUILT
LOST WORK LIFE
safety failure occurred in 2008, when Sheri Sanji died
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
FAMILY BEREAVEMENT in a lab fire in UCLA, US. Sanji, just 23 years old, used
PHYSICAL INJURY a highly pyrophoric chemical in an unsafe manner
and with insufficient protective equipment. She died
in hospital from her burn injuries. Her lab supervisor
was never charged, but the ten-year legal saga cost
a B approximately US$9m in fees.2

A Broader Look at Chemical
Manufacturing Disasters
The preventable disaster of Piper Alpha does not stand alone.
One process safety review 2 collated 70 major accidents across
30 countries in the period 1998–2015. A broader perspective is
given by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disas-
ters (CRED).3 Since 1901, the database has captured over 1,200
disasters involving chemical spills, fires, gas leaks, or explo-
sions recorded worldwide. In the last decade alone, over 180
chemical-related disasters have led to the deaths of nearly
6,000 people; the number of injuries is nearly three times the
fatalities. The conservative estimate of the number of people
affected by those accidents stands at over 120,000. Moreover,
CRED only includes disasters above a minimum threshold of
people involved in a particular accident. The full picture is
likely much bigger, and darker. Inside the “number affected”
statistics, lie the dominoes that have fallen behind the first.
These are the stories we have not read and cannot yet use in the
improvement of process safety.
But if these lab accidents each represent just the first domino
to fall, what of the other dominoes now falling over the longer-
term? What of Thea, whose career has been stunted by the loss
of her arm? And what of Sheri and Meng’s families, who now
mourn for the loss of their talented children? 20 years from
now, on the same timeline as my father’s demise, what will be
the last domino to fall for them?
A Call to Arms
Beyond the melancholy of my father’s story and the demise of
Piper Alpha, there is the opportunity to show that a safety failure
is far more than a single point in time. The moral impact of an
accident extends over many months and years, and far beyond
the reported fallout of the original event. To make use of this
fact, we are challenged to overcome the temptations of short-
term thinking. It’s easier to remember the past than to imagine
the possible details of a grim future. How can you bring a long-
term perspective to process safety?
Marc Reid is Lecturer at the School of Chemistry, University of Bristol,
and Founder of Pre-Site Safety

Lab-Level Safety Concerns

The large-scale safety concerns in chemical manufacturing Further Reading
also manifest on the small scale. Whilst industrial chemistry 1. Trope, Y and Liberman, N, Psychol Rev, 2010, 117, 440–463,
suffers many safety challenges, these sites are generally held to DOI: 10.1037/a0018963.
a higher standard of safety practice than academic laboratories. 2. Reid, M, ACS Chem Heal Saf, 2020, 27, 88–95, DOI: 10.1021/
A series of university chemistry lab incidents has highlighted acs.chas.9b00022 [Open Access].
challenges in lab safety culture the world over. 3. EM-DAT, The international disasters database,
https://www.emdat.be, (accessed 8 September 2020).
• In 2016, Thea Ekins Coward, a visiting student at Hawaii 4. D. Cyranoski, Nature, 2015, DOI:10.1038/nature.2015.19066.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 47

safetyreid DG.indd 47 24/09/2020 16:52

 feature oil & gas

How Strong are

your Barriers?
What can be learned from inspections of loss of containment
audit and assurance systems in the UK offshore oil
and gas industry? Ashley Hynds discusses

T
HE UK’s offshore oil and gas industry has long relied upon
the number of hydrocarbon releases per year as a barome-
ter of its safety performance. Over the last ten years, there
has been a consistent and welcome downward trend in the rate of
minor releases, reflecting the efforts by many to focus attention
on key risk areas such as small bore tubing and corrosion under
insulation. But is the industry really getting safer?
Over the same period, the rate of major releases has not
changed. There have typically been between two and eight
occurring annually, with no discernible trend (see Figure 1).
Each of these releases has been larger than the initiating event
at Piper Alpha.
With only a handful of major releases across the industry,
most operators will likely go for years without having one.
With major accidents being low frequency events however, it
doesn’t necessarily follow that that they are managing their
risks well.
Effective Process Safety Management isn’t
demonstrated by the absence of releases,
but by the presence of strong barriers
Operators can only be seen to be managing their risks well
if they can show that their major accident hazard barriers
are strong. These barriers will be a mixture of “hardware”
and “software” measures, which work together to prevent
releases, or lessen their effects. Typical operational

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 48

oilhynds DG.indd 48 24/09/2020 14:47

 feature oil & gas

Figure 1: Hydrocarbon releases reported to HSE 2008–2018 provisional

MINORS MAJORS
120 8

100
6
80

60 4

40
2
20

0 0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018p 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018p

barriers are shown in Table 1. recording of recommendations and corrective actions.

So how can an operator know how strong their barriers are? Both the Energy Institute1 and the Center for Chemical
The solution is a well-structured assurance system, which Process Safety 2 have published extensive guidance on assur-
systematically tests compliance with the key risk control ance systems to support legal compliance.
measures, and checks their effectiveness. Making sure that
such assurance systems are in place is a key process safety
leadership function. HSE’s inspections of Assurance systems
HSE routinely inspects offshore operators’ arrangements for
audit and assurance during its proactive interventions. A set of
Operators’ Legal Duties conversations I had with staff at one duty holder a few years
Operators have duties under the Management of Health & ago exemplifies a key weakness that is sometimes found.
Safety at Work Regulations 1999 to “make and give effect to Prior to an offshore inspection, I asked the onshore respon-
such arrangements as are appropriate…for the effective…moni- sible senior manager how well the permit-to-work system was
toring and review of the preventive and protective measures.” working. I was keen to know what the areas of weakness were,
The Offshore Installations (Offshore Safety Directive) and also what was being done to address them. The manager
(Safety Case etc) Regulations 2015 go further, and also require replied that the Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) had all
duty holders to “include in their safety case sufficient particulars the relevant information on the subject, and would be able to
to demonstrate that” they have “established adequate arrange- provide it during the offshore inspection.
ments for audit and for the making of reports of the audit.” Copies
of audit reports are required to be kept and there are several
further prescriptive requirements as to their content, and the Making sure that (well-structured)
assurance systems are in place is a key
process safety leadership function
Table 1: Examples of offshore oil & gas hydrocarbon release
Once offshore, I asked the OIM the same question. He replied
barriers
that the Operations Supervisor had all the relevant information
hardware barriers software barriers on the subject, and would be able to take me through it.
Process plant mechanical Operation of plant within safe The Operations Supervisor told me that the permit-to-
integrity limits work system had recently changed, and that his back-to-back
Instrumented protective colleague had a better understanding of the audit system, and
Management of change
systems
would be able to explain.
Permit-to-work, and safe
Inspection and maintenance of
isolation & reinstatement of
Frustratingly, three levels of staff were unable to describe
plant and protective systems
plant arrangements how effective the permit-to-work system was within their
Competence of staff organisation. Further inspection revealed that this was
because there wasn’t an effective assurance system in place.
Supervision of operations Lord Cullen’s Piper Alpha report had much to say on the
importance of auditing safety management. And with specific

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oilhynds DG.indd 49 24/09/2020 14:47

 feature oil & gas
reference to the permit-to-work system at the installation, he
identified that: “Senior management were too easily satisfied that
the PTW system was being operated correctly, relying on the absence
of any feedback of problems as indicating that all was well.”
Assurance System Weaknesses
Several common areas of weakness emerge from inspections
of offshore operators’ audit and assurance systems, as well as
some individual examples of good practice.
Lack of supervisory oversight
Good supervision is the essential first component of any effec-
tive assurance system. Performed well, it can have a significant
positive impact on safety performance, staff morale and
engagement. It can also help prevent hazardous mistakes, by
identifying gaps in team members’ knowledge, understanding
or motivation.
Expected standards of supervision are, however, not always
formalised. And competing priorities on a supervisor’s time
can mean that the quality and quantity of frontline supervi-
sion is not always ideal.
Recognising its importance, some operators have formally
described the activities and behaviours they expect of their
supervisors. This has included the amount of time they should
spend on plant every shift, and the tasks they should focus on.
Some operators also periodically monitor the hours of safety
supervision actually being achieved.
Key risk controls not being audited
Are you actually auditing the systems you need to? Recent
inspections at three different operators found that whilst
all had some form of control of work auditing, none of them
audited the arrangements relating to reinstatement of plant.
Key processes such as line-walking, close-out of management
of change actions, flange-break management and leak testing
were not being assured. And yet from a risk perspective, these
are potentially some of the most critical steps within the
overall maintenance task lifecycle, particularly if they relate to
hydrocarbon-containing systems. A failure in any one of them
could lead to a release on plant restart.
Frequency and depth of auditing not linked
to risks arising from non-compliance
The more frequently a system is used, and the more likely
there will be serious consequences if it is not effective, the
more frequently it should be audited, and the greater the depth
of scrutiny required.
Some audit schedules seen have given every procedural
control the same frequency of audit as each other. But plainly
some controls are more important than others.
You shouldn’t audit the arrangements for housekeep-
ing within the paint store at the same frequency as those for
process plant isolations.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 50
oilhynds DG.indd 50
Desk-based checks, rather than observations
and conversations on site
Effective assurance of a risk control system requires a full
picture of its status to be obtained. This requires inputs from
the people using it, the condition of the equipment or plant
that it affects, and the paperwork and records generated by it.
If you just sit at a desk and look at the paperwork, you won’t
get a true picture of what is going on. And if you find a fault,
it won’t necessarily be the full story, or help you understand
what needs to be done to fix it.
Process Safety KPIs bias towards
hardware/asset integrity metrics
Just because something is easy to measure, it doesn’t mean it
is the most important thing to measure. Many maintenance
management systems can provide large quantities of perfor-
mance data, such as metrics on overdue equipment inspections,
or outstanding corrective maintenance work orders. Many are
managed with computer-based systems, where data manipu-
lation and presentation can be automated, making KPIs very
simple to generate. These may indeed be helpful in assessing
the health of the hardware barriers. But this is only part of
the story.
Many operational controls do not inherently or automati-
cally generate an equivalent set of numerical data with which
to judge their health. These include, for example, systems for
management of change and plant operation in accordance with
standard operating procedures. Both skill and judgement are
needed to assess whether such controls are being complied
with, and the risk is being effectively controlled. Routine
auditing is typically the best method to determine this. Conse-
quently their performance may not be included within process
safety dashboards, or similar management reports, because
they are perceived to be more difficult to measure. The better
approach is to decide which systems and barriers matter to
you, and then to work out a way of measuring and reporting
on their health.
Failure to provide suitable instructions
and training in audit technique
If you want people to audit in a consistent, thorough and
robust way, you have to tell them how you want them to do so.
Good practices include the provision of an audit protocol with
suggested questions, and linkages to the relevant procedures
or work instructions that are being audited. Guidance should be
provided on how any templates should be completed, including
the level of detail of evidence to be recorded. Sharing examples
of good quality audit reports and findings can also help.
Internal auditors should have scope to ask open questions,
and be encouraged to get to the bottom of why any non-
compliances that they find have occurred. They should also be
taught how to ask non-leading questions, and be given suffi-
cient time to complete their audits. Mentoring of new auditors
on their first few audits, with feedback on their quality is good
24/09/2020 14:47
 feature oil & gas
practice, and those auditors who do an effective job should
receive positive recognition.
Insufficient detail recorded in audit reports
Some audit reports only contain information on issues of
concern (reporting by exception). Whilst helping to make the
reports concise, they may fail to give sufficient assurance that
the controls are being well managed. Is there no information
recorded on a particular topic because it was in compliance, or
because it wasn’t looked at?
Detailed reports, containing names of persons spoken to,
permit or equipment item numbers etc can help with follow-up
and rectification of issues. With the right format, they can also
help others in an organisation see what has gone wrong, and
perhaps recognise instances in their own work experience or
practice that also need improvement.
Auditors lacking in knowledge/
good practice for the topic
If you are going to perform a higher level of audit, you’ll be
asking questions as to whether the procedure (as applied) is
effective. Do people understand it? Is it working to control the
risk? Does it match contemporary good practice? You have to
know what good looks like. You ideally need to be a subject
matter expert. If you don’t have this knowledge, your audits
won’t be sufficiently challenging.
Too much emphasis on auditing of compliance
rather than effectiveness
Many audit systems place the greatest emphasis on checking
for procedural compliance by front-line staff. It is important,
however, that subject matter experts are also being used to
check whether the controls are effective at managing the risks.
Failure to challenge poor quality
audit reports and recommendations
It is human nature for people to make mistakes, to bend the
rules or to take shortcuts. Procedures are often wrong or diffi-
cult to follow. Standards change and improve. So when audits
consistently score highly, or very few corrective actions are
raised, it should be a concern.
A failure to challenge consistently high-scoring audits will
mean that they keep being reported. The same concern is true
for corrective actions. These should tackle the root cause of
the non-compliance and not merely the symptoms, and their
suitability should be reviewed and confirmed before they are
assigned.
Issues managed locally without
oversight, trending or analysis
Issues may not get the attention they need, if they are only
reported and managed at an individual site. It is possible
however that similar issues may be occurring at other sites,
or that the same issue is being repeated. To properly address
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 51
oilhynds DG.indd 51
any underlying problem, there may be a need to change
company-wide procedures or training, or to obtain additional
resources.
A wider analysis of the issues arising from an assurance
programme may help to prioritise what gets fixed. Assigning
a performance score to each audit can help with comparisons
between sites, as well as identify topics for attention.
Failure to raise significant issues
with Senior leadership
In some organisations bad news isn’t well received. But unless
senior leaders get to see the real picture of how their manage-
ment systems are performing, they can’t necessarily make
the right decisions, and provide the right level of resources
to address weaknesses. Some audit findings are so signifi-
cant (or occurring so frequently) that they should be reported
to management board level. Good assurance systems mandate
this, with examples to support what is expected.
No link between assurance system
and incident investigations
Effective incident and near-miss investigations often identify
specific procedural control failings. Users perhaps didn’t
follow a procedure because it was incorrect, misunderstood,
or there was time pressure. This can be a rich source of data
to be reviewed and learnt from when it comes to assessing the
effectiveness of a safety management system, deciding on the
frequency of auditing, or targeting improvements. Very often,
however, the two systems aren’t linked.
Failure to periodically review effectiveness
of assurance system
Good practice is for the audit programme to get reviewed
annually. What are we finding? Where are the weak areas?
Do we need to change our approach to get more meaningful
insight? If you keep doing what you’ve always done in terms
of auditing, at best you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.
Conclusions
Effective auditing and assurance of the measures to prevent
loss of containment is vital. Only by doing so, can operators
have confidence that there risks are being well managed. So
just how strong are your organisation’s barriers? How do you
know? And can you demonstrate it?
Ashley Hynds CEng FIChemE is HM Principal Inspector for Process
Engineering within HSE’s Energy Division - Offshore.
references
1. https://bit.ly/33F83ZN
2. https://bit.ly/3c7ak3X
24/09/2020 14:47
 VMIC feature pharmaceuticals

Quickly, More Vaccines

Chris Lucas speaks to Adam Duckett about accelerating the
UK’s emergency vaccine production capability

I
N early September, the UK’s Vaccines Manufacturing and
Innovation Centre (VMIC) received planning approval to
construct a facility near Oxford that it had already begun
building. At any other time that would seem highly irregular
but not during these times, not with the pressure on to mass
produce a vaccine to fight Covid-19.
In May, the UK Government awarded VMIC £93m to expand
the facility’s production capabilities by more than 20-fold and
to fast-track construction at Harwell so that operations start
next year – one year earlier than originally planned.
For insight on how the project has been reshaped by circum-
stance and how the ensuing risks of a significant shift in scope
are being managed during these extraordinary times, we
caught up with Chris Lucas, a chemical engineer and VMIC’s
Chief Operating Officer.
VMIC – sudden scaleup
“VMIC was originally for emergencies expected to be limited
to [producing] around 3m doses within three months,”
Lucas says. “We are now being asked to deliver 70m doses in
4-6 months.”
On top of this, VMIC – which was first awarded funding
in 2018 – had been focussing on viral vector technology but
with so many differing vaccine candidates being developed, the
Government has charged the team with expanding capabilities
to make the facility “technology agnostic”.
“That’s a huge number of challenges all rolled into one,
which are all being developed in parallel,” Lucas says.
Asked how the team is successfully managing such change,
Lucas says it basically comes down to good project- and risk
management but recognises the timescales are very tight –
pretty much the minimum anyone has ever seen.
“What VMIC is doing is accepting the challenge to target
meeting the shortest timescale on every activity that sits on or
close to the critical path.”
Discussing the facility’s planned filling line, he explains
that typically you’d schedule around nine months to get one
operational.
“We have a plan to do that installation, site acceptance

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 52

pharmav2txt DG xxwrong footer month.indd 52 24/09/2020 16:23

 feature pharmaceuticals
fast track: Priority planning status enabled construction of
the UK’s Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC)
to commence months before planning permission was granted
testing, qualification, and media fills in half that time. We believe
that is achievable.”
The funding provided by the Government is being used to
accelerate the project, expand the scope, take on more resource,
and work double shifts and weekends.
“We’re taking on more staff than we were planning to take on,
and we’re taking them on earlier.”
This of course brings inherent risk.
“In terms of activity on the site, we have full Covid risk assess-
ments in place. We are operating socially distanced and the main
contractor Glencar has been doing a fantastic job of maintain-
ing progress on site while at the same time ensuring the social
distancing measures required by Covid are in place.
“Clearly when we ramp up to the fit-out part of the project
there will be more people on site. That will increase the risk, but
we expect to still be able to maintain social distancing measures
and where that impacts on the schedule we will have to manage
accordingly.”
Despite all this, Lucas says the technical risk is limited. For
example, a recent comparison of the original process utility
requirements against the revised scope showed they could cover
the work without risk to the schedule.
However, he goes on to say that at the top of VMIC’s risk assess-
ment is that a local rise in infections could shut down construction.
New measures have been inserted, such as daily temperature
checks for all construction and development teams but the risk is
still high as the UK sees a resurgence in Covid-19 cases. He adds:
“We remain at the point where a Covid spike on site or in one of
the suppliers of a key piece of equipment could derail us signifi-
cantly. But that is not something we can do [anything about] other
than put in place the relevant risk-mitigation measures.”
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 53
pharmav2txt DG xxwrong footer month.indd 53
Elsewhere in Oxford
Alongside this parallel work, the VMIC team has also been
given £38m to establish a separate rapid deployment facility
– known as Virtual VMIC – that will use existing facilities in
Oxford to begin producing Covid-19 vaccine as early as October
this year.
This temporary facility is being established at a local site
owned by gene therapy firm Oxford Biomedica with support
from the National Vaccines Industry Taskforce. The team chose
to house the facility at Oxford Biomedica because it had suites
available that were nearing the end of their qualification to
achieve GMP compliance and the already-trained people that
the Oxford Biomedica team bring to this collaboration.
“Basically, it was a very good synergy to use their facility
and procure our equipment and recruit our people to be able to
get that rapid deployment capability in place.
“We remain at the point where a Covid
spike in one of the suppliers of a key piece
of equipment could derail us significantly. But
that is not something we can do [anything about]
other than put in place the relevant
risk-mitigation measures”
The risk with Virtual VMIC is that it is being set up on the
assumption that it will produce just one of the Covid-19
vaccines, the the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca adeno-
virus vector vaccine candidate AZD1222 (previously known as
ChAdOx1 nCoV-19).
“We know that there are other vaccines in development and
we recognise the other vaccines may have different manufac-
turing technologies and different platforms. So, yes there is a
risk there. VMIC itself – the VMIC facility being constructed
at Harwell campus – has looked at some of the other platform
technologies that are being used and we recognise that we
would be able to manufacture those technologies but not on
the timescale that rapid deployment in Virtual VMIC allows.”
Looking to the longer-term
Lucas says the team is in close contact with the medicines
regulator about the acceleration of the project and changes to
the design, and he expects the VMIC facility at Harwell will be
declared GMP-compliant by the end of next year.
Asked how easy it will be to transfer in processes from other
companies, Lucas says: “There is a clear technology transfer
process which is well known in the pharmaceutical, the biotech
and the vaccines industry.
“Our Head of Process and Analytical Development Jon
Humphreys has been actively involved in the technology transfer
of the AZD1222 vaccine from Oxford University; from the start
of the project, through the non-GMP development, and scaleup
work. This work is ongoing as we move through the first GMP runs
24/09/2020 16:23
 feature pharmaceuticals
and continue to assist AstraZeneca to transfer that technology
to Virtual VMIC and indeed other CMOs globally.”
Looking ahead to when VMIC also begins to fulfil its role
of providing facilities for researchers to take their vaccines
research to the next level, Lucas says VMIC is recruiting engi-
neers with experience of scaleup.
“The intention is that VMIC will have its own in-house
development team. We will have a number of pre-GMP and
a number of GMP development and manufacturing suites at
small scale, intermediate scale, and at large scale (see Boxout).
We would be welcoming collaborators both from academia and
SMEs, and indeed Big Pharma that have programmes that they
can’t handle internally, to come to VMIC and work with us to
Member questions
Ahead of the interview, Members of IChemE’s Covid-19
response team submitted questions they wanted to put
to the VMIC team. These exchanges have been edited for
clarity and length. This is a selection of the questions asked:
How many vaccines can be manufactured in parallel?
“In the longer-term we will have four small-scale pre-GMP
development suites. We will also have six small-scale suites
which are GMP that can be used either for development or
small-scale clinical manufacture. Those ten suites will have a
10–30 L production capability.
“We will have two medium manufacturing suites that are
each expected to offer a 50–200 L scale operation.
“And then we have two large-scale manufacturing suites
that are capable of comfortably hosting up to 1,000 L capacity.
For the pandemic, the designed layouts suggest we will be able
to accommodate two 1,000 L bioreactors running in parallel.
“We would not be resourcing VMIC such that every single
one of those suites would operate all the time. At least initially.
“So that covers drug substances manufacturing. In terms of
filling we have two medium-to-high speed filling lines which
are on order and being progressed to cater with a pandemic
capability. In addition to that we are proposing to procure
smaller-scale filling machines to cater for clinical supply and
safety study supply.”
What is the maximum biosafety level (BSL) for
the site?
“BSL2. That is on the basis of need. Prior to starting the design
process we had a number of scope-setting sessions which
included academics and industrialists.
“The step change to BSL3 and indeed BSL4 is relatively
significant in terms of the supporting equipment required. It
isn’t to say that in the future we couldn’t either modify the
facility or extend the facility but it is something we cannot do
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 54
pharmav2txt DG xxwrong footer month.indd 54
develop their processes, including the scaleup aspect of it.”
While hiring in Oxfordshire can be difficult due to the high
costs of living in the area, this isn’t currently proving a challenge.
“I’ve heard it said the cost of living in Oxford is higher than
London. That’s an issue that we will constantly see. The fact that
we’re not-for-profit is also an issue that we have to contend with.”
Despite this, Lucas is happy to report that the campaign
to recruit 35 new staff members is working well. He says the
pandemic is driving interest in VMIC’s work and the opportu-
nity for innovation.
“We’ve been able to attract people that are wanting to be
at the sharp end – if you like – of vaccines development and
manufacture.”
on day one.
“I think it’s fair to say as vaccine processes have evolved
over the years more from live and attenuated vaccines and
deactivated vaccines to the modern vectors that the biosafety
level is going down rather than up.”
What material handling facilities will the plant have?
“We’re not handling huge quantities of solids. We have got a
media and buffer preparation area where solid powders will be
made into the liquid buffers that are required. We expect to
pack columns in situ. And as part of process development we
will develop column life studies. But we’re not talking about
handling tens or hundreds of tons of materials here. We’re
talking relatively small quantities of solid materials.”
Will you be using single-use technology?
“Yes, the basis of the VMIC facility design is single-use tech-
nology. We do have traditional stainless steel in our media
prep area but only there. All the processing equipment and
the facility design is that the manufacturing suites – certainly
the larger-scale manufacturing suites – will be focussed on
single-use technology.”
How will you decontaminate equipment and containers?
We have vaporised hydrogen peroxide (VHP) passthroughs
and autoclaves for decontamination. And sterilisation of the
equipment coming into the facility.
How are you treating effluent?
We have a heat treatment system designed for deactivation
of BSL2 material. This involves holding the BSL2 waste at a
given temperature for a given time period prior to release.
We also have a capability to do biological decontamination of
the process wastes and then to tanker them offsite if they are
unsuitable for discharge.
24/09/2020 16:23
 Hazards30
26–27 November 2020, Virtual
Having been postponed due to the pandemic, our annual Hazards conference will now be delivered
virtually on 26 & 27 November, making process safety knowledge-sharing more accessible than ever
before. Join us online to stay up to date with process safety good practice, discover new techniques
and approaches, explore lessons learned from past incidents and near-misses, and network with the
international process safety community.

Key features
■ 70+ technical presentations from ■ On-demand access to the ■ Panel discussion
industry practitioners, regulators presentations for 30 days after ■ Virtual networking lounge
and researchers the live conference ■ Virtual exhibition hall
■ Live Q&A ■ Inspirational plenary speakers

Plenary speakers

Steve Rae Jo Nettleton Maureen Wood Margaret Donnan

Step Change Environment Major Accident IChemE Safety Centre
in Safety Agency Hazards Bureau Advisory Board

Presentation themes
■ Human Factors ■ DSEAR/ATEX ■ Safety Culture
■ Dust Hazards ■ Hydrogen Hazards ■ Fire and Gas Detection
■ Lessons Forgotten ■ Risk Management ■ Inherent Safety
■ LOPA ■ Process Safety and COVID-19 ■ Regulation
■ Modelling and Experimental ■ Emergency Planning ■ Asset Integrity
Flammability ■ Environmental Protection ■ Permits and Records
■ Safety Leadership ■ Chemical Hazards
■ Natural Hazards ■ Process Safety Management

Find out more and register: www.icheme.org/hazards30

Celebratin
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Hazards30 Virtual FP AD.indd 2 22/09/2020 11:51

 feature learned society

Digital Technologies are

Transforming Lives and Work
Alexandra Meldrum discusses IChemE’s Digitalisation project

I
FIRST heard about IChemE at a university barbeque. Drawn
to the sausage sizzle, my friends and I signed up as IChemE
members.
Seems like much has changed since then. We are now more
likely to meet through a screen.
the changes are everywhere.
The application of new digital technologies is changing our
society, economy and politics. Organisations, government and
education are impacted by the development of digital technologies
that are impacting roles, processes and organisations.

Even before the pandemic, our profession was
facing transformation. We are in a technology
revolution and the changes are everywhere
Digital technologies have helped us to maintain our society, work
and friendships throughout the challenges of physical distancing
in a pandemic. In some ways, a shared challenge seems to have
brought the world closer. I’m grateful for the digital technologies
that make this possible. Even before the pandemic, our profession
was facing transformation. We are in a technology revolution and
The Impact on all of us in Chemical Engineering
Digital technologies are impacting how we do work and what we
work on. This change affects all of us as chemical, biochemical and
process engineers.
As digital technologies are applied, they transform the areas
where we work. We can innovate, exploit opportunities, and solve
new problems. We’ll also face challenges.
I’m excited that chemical engineers take a central role in
tackling the Global Grand Challenges for our society - including
food, water, energy and health.

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 56

learnedsoc DG.indd 56 24/09/2020 14:15

 feature learned society

digitalisation technical advisory group

role name region subject area

Leader Alexandra Meldrum Australia Leader IChemE Digitalisation Project

Chair Helen Kilbride UK Energy; Safety & Risk

Deputy Chair Brent Young New Zealand Education, Innovation and Research; Education SIG Committee

Ex Officio Jarka Glassey UK Vice President Learned Society

Member Christoph Bayer Germany Education, Innovation and Research

Member Tobias Cleaver-Ross UK Manufacturing & Resources; Health & Wellbeing

Member Joanna (Jo) Elder UK Energy

Member Chris Hamlin UK Manufacturing & Resources; Process Management & Control SIG Committee

Member Tristan Hunter New Zealand Food & Beverage

Member Colin Newbery Singapore Water

Member Sammy Sambu Belgium Education, Innovation and Research; Health & Wellbeing

Member Stefaan (Stef) Simons UK Energy

Member Joanne Tanner Australia Education, Innovation and Research

The IChemE Digitalisation Project
IChemE exists to advance chemical engineering’s contribution
worldwide for the benefit of society.
Through our learned society function, we work to address
society’s Grand Challenges for Engineering and support the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The Learned Society Committee has made Digitalisation one
of three priority topics.
IChemE needs to understand how digital technologies affect
chemical, biochemical and process engineering professionals,
and ensure members are aware of the impacts and are prepared
for change.
IChemE needs to understand how digital
technologies affect chemical, biochemical
and process engineering professionals,
and ensure members are aware of the
impacts and prepared for change
We need to provide new education and continuous learning and
promote ethical and responsible use of digital technology across
process industries. IChemE needs to provide the information,
facilitate debate and deliver training to support members so
that they have the required knowledge, skills and capabilities
for employment and to actively serve society throughout their
careers.
The Digitalisation project will run for three years and support
the delivery of IChemE’s Strategy 2024.
It will focus on digital tools including systems thinking, big
data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, process control
and automation, virtual reality, cyber security and process
design. It will seek to develop our capabilities in the critical
enablers for use of these tools – ethical and responsible leader-
ship, education and lifelong learning and organisational aspects.
The project outputs will have broad application across seven
subject areas: Education Innovation and Research (EIR), Energy,
Food and Beverages, Health and Wellbeing, Manufacturing and
Resources, Safety and Risk, and Water.
Digitalisation Technical Advisory Group (TAG)
IChemE has set up a Digitalisation TAG with the responsibility
of leading the Digitalisation project. The recent call for nomina-
tions had a high level of interest and we are pleased to announce
and congratulate the members who were selected to join the
inaugural group. We would like to thank everyone who submit-
ted a nomination.
The group was selected based on technical skills and to
ensure a diverse representation covering the breadth of subject
areas, career backgrounds, geographies, gender and age.
The group’s first goal will be to develop resources to equip
IChemE members with knowledge and skills. We would like to
thank the members of the Learned Society Forum and SIGs who
have provided feedback on our initial priorities and look forward
to continuing to work with you over the next three years.
I am delighted to be leading this project and to see the project
starting to take shape. I look forward to providing members
with future updates and opportunities.
Alexandra Meldrum, Leader, IChemE Digitalisation project

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 57

learnedsoc DG.indd 57 24/09/2020 14:15

 book review
HECK
A Guide to Hazard
Identification Methods,
Second Edition
FRANK CRAWLEY
ISBN: 9780128195437 (PAPERBACK);
ELSEVIER; 2020; £117.30
I
T’S an interesting position to be in, to review the second
edition of a book that I used in the early part of my career
and, later, in my development as a process safety
engineer. As a fierce advocate for placing hazard identification
firmly at the heart of process safety management, I was hoping
that this much-expanded second edition would add impetus
to the spread of recognised good practice in hazard identifi-
cation across the process industries. But, alas, I fear that it
won’t.
Rather than updating the descriptions of the key hazard
identification techniques contained in the first edition
to reflect current recognised good practice, this second
edition expands on the first by introducing a range of new
techniques that mostly relate to risk assessment rather than
hazard identification. This is not necessarily a bad thing in
itself, as the reader will get more than what is advertised in
the title, but in my view the effort would have been better spent
in modernising the descriptions of the core techniques such
as hazard identification (HAZID), and hazard and operability
study (HAZOP); dealing in greater depth with HAZOP revalida-
tion; and re-doing and giving more space to the treatment of
process hazards review.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 58
bookreview952 DG.indd 58
Summary
Still offers a good introduction to a
wide range of hazard identification and
risk assessment techniques and will
remain a useful entry-level reference
work, but this second edition misses the
opportunity to modernise itself and
showcase current recognised good practice
Of the new subjects in the second edition, the description of
HAZID, while interesting (since I have not seen it before), bears
little relation to the consequence-based, major-hazards-
focussed technique that I see frequently across a number
of process industry sectors. And, strikingly, HAZID is not
mentioned in the chapter Hazard Studies, and it is stated in the
HAZID chapter that it “can be carried out at all project
phases”. HAZID is specifically designed to be carried out
in the front-end engineering design stage where major
hazards need to be identified early to avoid unexpected
cost increases should they be identified once the design is fixed.
Task analysis is a welcome new addition since struc-
tured hazard identification is increasingly being applied to
procedures, but the chapter doesn’t discuss the increasingly
important and widely-used procedural HAZOP technique, nor
provide an example showing the use of a guideword-driven
24/09/2020 12:51
 book review
approach, which procedural HAZOP employs.
A new chapter, entitled Risk Assessment, describes some
of the fundamentals of consequence analysis and refers to
quantified risk assessment (QRA) but doesn’t describe the
approach to QRA that is commonly employed using
tools such as risk management and quality assur-
ance expert DNV GL’s Safeti software. There is also chapter
on Relative Ranking that describes the Dow Fire and Explosion
Index guidance but not the method itself and is consequently
hard to follow.
Another new chapter describes Bow Tie Analysis, which
the author states is not a hazard identification (nor risk
assessment) technique. There’s one which discusses Safety
Audit – definitely not a hazard identification technique and
much better covered elsewhere. And, there’s a new introduc-
tory chapter on the Regulatory Framework. Note to authors: you
will not grab your reader’s attention by starting your book with
the subject of the regulatory framework.
But what of the subjects originally discussed in the first
edition? As I have said, I do not believe these were updated to
reflect current recognised good practice, as is claimed in the
foreword. If we take HAZOP as an example, the description does
not distinguish well between the different types of HAZOP, of
which there are two – continuous and batch. Batch style is
also applied to procedures. Additionally, it doesn’t reflect the
recently-increased emphasis in a number of process sectors
on thorough preparation, terms of reference, the capabil-
ity of the facilitator, and the quality of recommendations. Nor
does it tackle current debates around “revalidation versus
re-do” through the process lifecycle and the relationship with
process hazards review – although it does mention the concept
of preliminary HAZOP (sometimes called “coarse” HAZOP but I
prefer the term “bad” HAZOP). Most tellingly, it doesn’t contain
a modern example of Process Hazards Review illustrated with
a snapshot from a high-quality worksheet. This is a common
feature that is missing throughout the book – high quality,
modern examples that grab the attention of the reader and
“bring the subject alive”.
The overall impression shown by the choice of examples, as
well as the layout, style of prose, and lack of references to
recent research and publications, is not of a new book, but one
that is rather dated. This book is not alone, but can we all move
on from talking about ICI? It ceased to exist many years ago.
This brings me to the structure of the book. It comprises a
mixture of 19 hazard identification and risk assessment tech-
niques, but the order in which they are presented does not
follow any obvious logic: HAZOP is presented before HAZID,
layers of protection analysis or LOPA (again, not a hazard
identification tool) before What If? and Checklists and so on,
switching from hazard identification to risk assessment and
back again. However, given that the book has no overall narra-
tive (there is no effort to flow from one chapter to the next) this
is not a major flaw, since the value of the book will remain as
a reference work.
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 59
bookreview952 DG.indd 59
Within each chapter a common structure is used: defini-
tion; description; resource requirements; timing; advantages,
disadvantages and uncertainties; and applications. This
is helpful from the point of view of a reference work but for
readers interested in reading the whole book it is relatively dry
and monotonous, made more difficult by the absence of narra-
tive from chapter to chapter.
Concerning the clarity and editing of the book, the reader
is not helped throughout by numerous examples where errors
in clarity of meaning, syntax, or typing seem to have survived
the editing process. As an example, can you decipher what
this description of HAZID means? “Initially it was based upon
a HAZID matrix which had three headings: effect; to/on; cause.
By permuting each entry from column 1 with one from both
columns 2 and 3 various risk scenarios could be proposed”. No,
me neither. Likewise, what can we make of “Loops this affects
the peak concentration”? Simple errors such as, “Therewas-
NOemergencyplan”, “diesel dil” and “Strange effects have been
notes” are encountered regularly throughout the book. In the
chapter on task analysis we have “This is exampled…more locally
by to the author during roof work on a hotel in Ayr – Scotland –
June 14th 2019”. This obviously amuses the author but how does
this help the reader?
despite being unlikely to spread recognised
good practice in hazard identification,
it will remain useful as an entry-
level reference work on a range of hazard
identification and risk assessment techniques
Other process industry examples such as “Beek in
Holland” and “Thalidomide is a classic example” are neither
explained nor referenced. Elsewhere we have “Doses for chem-
icals are to be found in data books”. Which ones? “There are
a number of examples in the IChemE Loss Prevention Bulletin”.
Which issues? “Physical protection See Personal Protective Equip-
ment Regulations in the UK” and “There are a number of sources of
information on the web” occur in a chapter that comes with no
reference section at all.
The reference to UK regulations quoted above is but
one example of many that show that the book is very UK-
centric, at least in its references to the regulatory framework.
Overall, the contents of this book are wider than the title
suggests. Moreover, despite being unlikely to spread recognised
good practice in hazard identification, it will remain useful as
an entry-level reference work on a range of hazard identifica-
tion and risk assessment techniques for undergraduates and
aspiring process safety engineers and other safety profession-
als working on process plants. I hope the next edition will focus
on modernising such an important topic more thoroughly.
Reviewed by Phil Eames CEng FIChemE, Independent Consultant
24/09/2020 12:51
 news icheme

global awards medals & prizes

IChemE asks
IChemE announces Awards finalists community to
ICHEME has announced that more than 120 finalists are in with a chance of nominate peers
winning a trophy for excellence in chemical, biochemical, and process
engineering in the Institution’s Global Awards 2020. ICHEME is calling on the chemical
This year’s winners will be announced in a series of webinars running from engineering community to make nomi-
2–19 November, with each webinar showcasing each finalist’s project in the team nations for its annual medals and prizes.
categories, or the personal achievements of finalists in the individual categories. The nominations process is open
Three new team categories are included in this year’s Global Awards: Best for submissions until 31 October. Prizes
Consultancy; Process Automation and Digitalisation; and Public Engagement. are given for both individuals and
The best entry across all 18 team categories will receive the Outstanding groups to provide peer recognition of
Achievement in Chemical and Process Engineering Award. excellence in research, teaching,
Finalists include: Al-Nahrain University, Iraq; Dow Performance Silicones, US; services to the profession as well as
Florence Energy, Australia; FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, UK; H&S for outstanding contributions to the
Anlagentechnik, Germany; Petronas, Malaysia; Proklean Technologies, India; Telkom Institution from volunteers.
University, Indonesia; Safety Solutions, New Zealand; Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; The IChemE Vice President - Learned
University of Hong Kong, China; and University of Cape Town, South Africa. Society and Chair of IChemE’s Medals &
Keith Batchelor, Chair of the IChemE Global Awards volunteer judging panel, said: Prizes Committee, Jarka Glassey said: “I
“With the skillset and flexibility to adapt to challenges as they occur, during this encourage professionals in both indus-
pandemic we have seen the unwavering efforts of chemical engineers to continue try and academia around the world,
innovating and maintain safe practices. Our judges felt it especially important to whether or not they are IChemE mem-
recognise these efforts this year, just in a virtual way.” bers, to nominate their peers who are
Winners of the IChemE Malaysia Awards, who will be announced virtually on 19 working to benefit society.
October, will qualify as finalists in their respective categories at the IChemE Global “With so many different medals and
Awards. There are 31 finalists shortlisted for eight awards. Finalists include The prizes to be awarded, there is a category
Malaysian Refining Company, Petronas, Sumwin Solutions Malaysia, Universiti Tunku for everyone. From the Trustees Medal
Abdul Rahman, and Xiamen University Malaysia. awarded to a volunteer who has given
Law Chung Lim, Chair of IChemE’s Malaysian Board, said: “Thank you everyone who exceptional service to an IChemE special
took the time to enter this year’s awards and for your continuous commitment to the project, to the Morton Medal awarded
profession.” to an individual for their dedication
Find a full list of finalists and register for the award webinars on www.icheme.org to excellence in chemical engineer-
ing education…[the] programme allows
individuals or groups in all stages of
their career to receive the acknowledge-
learned society ment they deserve.”
IChemE said it wants to celebrate
IChemE launches Knowledge Hub and honour outstanding chemical engi-
neers from all nations and ethnicities
ICHEME has launched its Knowledge Hub, which is a virtual library of thousands worldwide, and particularly encourages
of resources for process engineers. nominations of women and those from
Information from a broad range of sources will be available on the Knowledge minority groups.
Hub, including historic journal papers, incident reports, good practice guides from The winners will be announced in
the IChemE Safety Centre, articles from The Chemical Engineer and Loss Prevention 2021 and presented with their prizes at
Bulletin, online training courses, and Hazards conference proceedings. More than events throughout the year.
9,000 pieces of technical content will be accessible through a single searchable A description of the full list of
index. The content can also be browsed by industry, topic, author, or date. prizes, their criteria, and a link to the
Jarka Glassey, Vice President - Learned Society, said: “Over time we will nominations form is available here:
continue to add more and more content to the Knowledge Hub, ensuring that all https://www.icheme.org/about-us/
of IChemE’s technical information and guidance is easily accessible in one place.” press-releases/icheme-calls-for-nomi-
nations-for-medals-and-prizes/

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 60

ichemenews DG.indd 60 24/09/2020 13:40

 The Chemical Engineer letters
SEND YOUR FEEDBACK TO LETTERS@ICHEME.ORG, @TCEMAGAZINE, FACEBOOK.COM/TCEMAGAZINE
Unhealthy work culture
Thanks to Wellcome Trust for bringing to the surface the unhealthy
culture at research workplaces (p4, issue 946).
With 43% of respondents reporting bullying and harassment and
only 44% an adequate wellbeing support, it seems that the envi-
ronment at a considerable number of workplaces where knowledge
is developed suffers. It is time now that victims of such phenomena
react and speak; and their colleagues must also urge them to.
Let us all, in addition to our core business, be more concerned on
this subject at the workplaces where we are present and contribute
to a really safer as well as mentally healthier environment.
Leandros Nicolaides AMIChemE, Cyprus
A perspective on Net Zero
Further to the article, Hydrogen: Informing a Safe Decision to Achieve
Net Zero (p18, issue 948), net zero means any emissions would
be either balanced by schemes to offset an equivalent amount
of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, such as by planting
trees or avoided by using carbon capture and storage technology.
However, this would not be ‘job done’ because emissions associated
with our imported goods are listed in the countries where they are
manufactured.
Between 1990 and 2016 the UK reported a 41% reduction in the
greenhouse gas emissions within its borders. In the same period
emissions associated with imports increased: their proportion of
total emissions was 14% in 1990 and 46% in 2016. As a result the
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total of domestic plus imported emissions decreased by only 15%.
In practice UK-based consumption drives emissions across the
globe. See: www.wwf.org.uk/carbon-report-2020
Peter Foster CEng FIChemE, UK
carbon-free hydrogen
The importance of hydrogen as a fuel for the future and its manu-
facture and transportation has been emphasised in recent editions.
It must, of course, be produced by steam reforming of natural gas
with CCUS in place or electrolysis of water using renewable elec-
tricity, both expensive, to ensure that it is carbon free.
There is another way of producing carbon free hydrogen and
that is by splitting water directly into hydrogen and oxygen via
the Sulphur Iodine process using high grade heat. The HTGR (High
Temperature Gas Cooled reactor) uses helium as the working fluid
and produces heat at 950°C. A demonstration HTGR has been
operated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency for ten years and there
are plans to build such reactors in the UK, using the UK nuclear
supply chain.
The demand for hydrogen is expected to be huge. It will be
a challenge for the chemical industry and particularly young
chemical engineers. Nuclear power will play a crucial role in
achieving net-zero carbon energy by 2050.
Ian Fells CEng FIChemE, UK
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 The Chemical Engineer
Training & Events Calendar
0ctober
2 Layer of Protection
Analysis (LOPA)
2 October, 10:00–13:00 BST,
Online
Learn the methodology and
detailed application of LOPA.
www.icheme.org/live-lopa
5 Nuclear Industry in the
21st Century
5 October, 17:00 BST, Online
Examine the role that nuclear
power is predicted to play in the
future of the global energy mix.
www.icheme.org/nuclear-industry
6 Air – The Basics
6 October, 10:30 BST, Online
Explore the properties of air, with
some illustrations of practical air
handling calculations.
www.icheme.org/airbasics20
6 Process Drawings
6 October, 08:30 BST, Online
An overview of the drawings
used during the early stages of a
plant’s design and construction.
www.icheme.org/process-drawings
8 hazard awareness
8 October, Cumbria, UK
Understand the impact of hydro-
carbon releases in the oil and gas
industry.
www.dnvgl.com/training
9 Therapeutics for COVID-19
9 October, 09:00 BST, Online
Explore the variety of products
being developed or repurposed to
minimise the effects of Covid-19.
www.icheme.org/therapeutics
12 A Peek into Eskom –
Review and Outlook
12 October, 13:00 BST, Online
Review how Eskom has degraded
from winning a Global Award
as “Power Utility of the Year” in
2001 to a third-world utility.
www.icheme.org/peek-into-eskom
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 62
diary952 DG.indd 62
visit www.icheme.org/training
12 Managing Human Failure
Modules start 12 october
19 Fundamentals of Process
Safety
15:00–17:00 BST, Online Modules start 19 October,
Explore how to proactively manage 14:00–17:00 BST, Online
human errors and non-compliance, Increase your understanding
analyse human failures contrib- of the key principles of process
uting to incidents, and manage safety and its management.
performance under pressure. www.icheme.org/live-
www.icheme.org/live- fundamentals
human-failure
20 Chemical Engineering for
12– Effective Alarm Scientists and Other
15 Management Engineers
12–15 October, Online Modules start 20 October,
Understand the management of 14:00–17:00 BST, Online
alarm systems, including how to Learn more about the core
identify and evaluate the concepts and unique features of
associated benefits.
chemical engineering.
www.cvent.com/d/fnqn3z
www.icheme.org /live-
chemical-engineering
14 Experiences of Industrial
Placements in the FMCG
Sector 20 Scrubbed Horizontal
14 October, 14:00 BST, Online Films for Gas Cleaning
20 October, 10:30 BST, Online
Students and hiring managers
Explore this well-established
will share their experiences of
gas/liquid transfer mechanism
industrial placements within the
and its technical advantages.
FMCG sector.
www.icheme.org/scrubbed
www.icheme.org/fmcg-sector
horizontal
15 Get Chartered
15 October, 18:00 BST, Online 20 Six Pillars of Process Safety
Join the South Wales Members Modules start 20 October,
Group to learn about the require- 10:00–13:00 BST, Online
ments for Chartered Chemical Develop your understanding of
Engineer and CEng registrations. the six functional areas of
www.icheme.org/southwales- process safety.
getchartered www.icheme.org/live-six-pillars
15
Grading Your Display System
15 October, 15:00–16:00 BST, online
Process Management & Control Special Interest Group
The Center for Operator Performance has developed a tool to grade display
systems. The system examines organisation of the system as well as layout of
individual graphics. The resulting score both identifies potential enhancements
to the display system and allows comparison of displays across multiple
platforms. This webinar will review the areas to be evaluated
and demonstrate how the tool can be utilised.
www.icheme.org/gradingdisplay
24/09/2020 16:43

20
Troubleshooting
Distillation Controls
Modules start
20 October,
18:00–21:00 BST,
Online
Join recognised expert
Henry Kister to learn
how to get the best
performance from a
distillation column control
system, including how to
troubleshoot and
identify causes of poor
performance, evaluate
existing performance,
avoid common causes of
instability, and develop
improvements.
www.icheme.org/
live-distillation
22 Fluid Mixing Processes
SIG Student Event
22 October, 10:00 BST,
Online
Explore the challenges handled
by UK-based research students
in the area of fluid mixing.
www.icheme.org/FMPStudent
event
23 HAZOP Study Leadership
and Management
Modules start 23 October,
10:00–13:00 BST, Online
Learn how to effectively lead,
manage and organise a HAZOP
study team.
www.icheme.org/
live-hazop-leadership
27 Get Chartered
27 October, 18:00 GMT,
Online
Join the Hull and Humber
OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 63
diary952 DG.indd 63
Members Group to learn about
the requirements for Chartered
Chemical Engineer and CEng
registrations.
www.icheme.org/hhgetchartered
29 Web Interactive Tool –
A New Approach in Under-
graduate Teaching
29 October, 09:30 GMT,
Online
An insight into the different web
interactive tools (WIT) available
for teaching chemical engineer-
ing undergraduate students.
www.icheme.org/web-
interactive-tool
november
2– Process Design Practices
13 for Design, Optimisation
and Troubleshooting
2–13 November, Online
Learn basic design practices for
process plant and equipment in
design, optimisation and trou-
bleshooting contexts.
www.proceng.co.uk
2– IChemE Global Awards
19
Webinars
2–19 November, online
The IChemE Global Awards 2020
winners will be announced
during a series of free webinars,
where all category finalists
will present their work and
participate in Q&A.
www.icheme.org/global-awards
3 Methods of SIL
Determination
3 November, 09:00 GMT,
Online
Explore the pros and cons of
the various methods available
for determining Safety Integri-
ty Level (SIL) targets for Safety
Instrumented Functions (SIFs).
www.icheme.org/sil-
determination
3– Expert Hazard Awareness
5 3–5 November, Cumbria, UK
Understand the impact of hydro-
carbon releases in the oil and
gas industry.
www.dnvgl.com/training
9 Strengthening Organisa-
tional Performance
Modules start
9 November,
09:00–11:00 GMT, Online
Learn how to improve safety
standards and organisational
performance through a better
understanding of human factors.
www.icheme.org/live-
organisational-performance
16 IChemE Forms of Contract
Modules start
16 November,
14:00–17:00 GMT, Online
Discover how to apply the
IChemE Forms of Contract to
your projects.
www.icheme.org/live-foc
26
–27
hazards 30
26–27 november,
virtual
Our annual Hazards
process safety conference
will be delivered virtually
this year. Join us online to
review good practice,
discover new techniques and
approaches, explore lessons
learned, and network with
the international process
safety community.
Presentations will be
available on-demand for 30
days after the live conference.
www.icheme.org/hazards30
24/09/2020 16:44
 RESIDuE the STUFF LEFT OVER AT THE END

Knives made of poo

g don’t work
Scientists are usin
s
too many acronym
TH AT is the conclu
sion of aw ard-w inn
research. What kin ing
d of aw ard? Well it
be the Ig Nobels. Th must
e 30th First Annual
ers from the Ig
ed by research Nobel Prize cerem
A paper publish no log y (Q UT ) on y was held virtu-
iversity of Te ch ally and the prizes
Queensland Un at were “presented” by
re In du str ies Institute (FII) real Nobel Laurea
and the Fu tu s tes, including 201
(UniSA) ha 8
South Australia Chemistry winner
the University of sci en tif ic lit er- Fra nces Arnold.
of acro ny ms in The Materials Sci
analysed the use information ence Prize was
an d fou nd that too much aw arded to a team wh
atures ny ms . o showed that
d in terms of acro knives made fro
(TMI) is expresse icl e tit les an d m frozen human
than 24m art faeces don’t work. Th
Analysing more nd e work was based
be tw ee n 195 0 and 2019, they fou on a story found in
18m abstracts d in tit les and popular culture and
ronyms has tre ble academic literature
that the use of ac ronyms about an Inuit who
10- fol d in ab stracts. Many ac made a knife out of
increased ence an d ca n his ow n frozen faeces.
anings across sci The authors wante
have multiple me s are als o in d to show the impor-
when the acronym tance of checking un
create confusion sup por ted claims. One of
other meanings.
common use with WT F (w ate r-
the team went on a
die t con sistent with an arc
, we thought tic
Here at Residue rel y so me -
diet, and raw mater
ial col lection began after
rm ald eh yd e)! Su four
-fo days. Knives were
soluble thiourea AP formed via ceramic
to be do ne about this AS and moulds, or by han
thing needs were sharpened wit d,
ct). FY I (first h a metal file, but
ce Archives Proje were unable to cut
(Australian Scien anings ac ros s muscle, and tendon
s. hides,
s 18 different me
year ice), UA ha need to sen d The Acoust ics Prize
we nt to a team which
y science journals induced a female Ch
science and surel do something
alligator to bellow
in an airtight chamb inese
on sa pp hir e) to er filled with helium-en
SO S (si lic on air. Th ey sug ric hed
out an ID (indus- gest that vocalisat
ions from alligator
out th is no w that we have an aco ust ic ind ica s could provide an
ab at is certainly tion of body size.
the problem. Th
trial design) on ser ial vis ua l The Physics Prize
was awarded for det
uld RSVP (rapid ermining what hap
a meeting we wo e cu rre nt sit u- the shape of a liv ing
ear thworm when it’s vib
pens to
alt ho ug h wi th th rated at a high freque
presentation) to, ) The whole body of ncy.
(ethanolam ine the worm adopts a
s when the ETA standing wave form,
ation, who know er coating ). apparently makes
sen se if the worm is wh ich
C (thermal barri considered to be “a
on that will be. TB drop enclosed by a
thin elastic skin”. liquid
cow though. A far cry from a sph
erical
The Entomology
ea-forma ldehyde Prize went to a
wtf: water-soluble thiour evidence that sugges scient ist who collec
ts many entomologis ted
The paper, Arachn ts are afraid of spider
ophobic Entomologis s.
Makes a Big Dif ferenc ts: When Two More
Legs
e, sur veyed entom
insects – and asked ologists – who stu
them to rate their fea dy
We’re curious as to r or disgust of spider
what they think of s.
centipedes.
Pictured: Non-faeces
(ie working) Inuit kni
ves

OCTOBER 2020 | The Chemical Engineer | page 64

residue952 DG.indd 64 24/09/2020 14:58

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heated and insulated arms with vapour recovery. We can capable of handling all liquids and is custom designed to
provide arms for almost every liquid, ensuring safe and your specification.
clean bulk transfer operations.
Track Mounted Folding Stairs Marine Gangways
This system utilises a unique track and barrier system Bridging the variable gap between the jetty and ship,
to allow a folding star to traverse over any distance, ship to ship or platform to ship. Our Marine Gangways are
providing flexible access onto tanker tops where long custom designed for each application.
loading racks are used.
Safety Breakaway Couplings Storage Tank Floating Suction Units
Mitigate against an un-planned drive-away during liquid Floating suction units are used in storage tanks to allow
transfer operations. The breakaway coupling will part suction of the product near to the liquid surface level,
before damage occurs to the hose or loading arm and will avoiding intake of water or sediments that accumulate at
seal the line, preventing spillage. the bottom of a tank.
The Stables, Coach House, Hythe Road, Smeeth, Kent,
TN25 6SP, UK
Tel: 01303 813030 Fax: 01303 814040
Email: info@carbisloadtec.com
Website: www.carbisloadtec.com
22/09/2020 18:13