Seminar, Safety and Serendipity

September saw a surfeit of events and programmes – Students CHEMCON and IIChE Council Meeting at Anantapur, CHEMCON 2006 NOC Meeting, Investiture ceremony of Student Chapter at Datta Meghe College of Engineering, Meeting of the Board of Studies in Chemical Engineering of the Mumbai University and last but not least the workshop on Process Development and Scale-up in Fine Chemical Industry at Chiplun.

As one of the architects of the Chiplun workshop I was excited by three features –
the collaborative efforts between two regional centres of IIChE (Mumbai and Lote)
the interaction between academia and industry and
the customer driven content

Seminars and symposia can be a big let-down if you peg your expectations high. I look for one technical take-away and more importantly look forward to network with other professionals. One of the more interesting presentations at this workshop examined the safety considerations in scaling up reactions from laboratory to commercial plant. It had serendipitous moments for me.

Here are two resources which capture that content and excitement

A Checklist for Inherently Safer Chemical Reaction Process Design and Operation

Chemical Reaction Engineering for Safety

Is Insulation Corrosion Proof?

If you are among those engineers who think that insulation, apart from energy conservation, also gives protection against external atmospheric corrosion, then you are wrong. Poorly specified and wrongly installed insulation can corrode even stainless steel. Corrosion under insulation is a major cause for concern in contributing to unexpected failures. Corrosion takes place unnoticed under the seemingly perfect insulation and eventually leads to a sudden failure.

Austenitic stainless steels are susceptible to chloride induced stress corrosion cracking (SCC) at temperatures above 65 0C. Since chlorides can ingress along with water through insulation, insulated austenitic stainless steel surfaces are vulnerable to SCC. Insulated austenitic stainless steel surfaces operating at temperatures above 65 0C should have protective coating. Further, chloride free (< 10 ppm) insulating materials are recommended for this application. Duplex stainless steels have a high resistance to SCC and do not require external coating.

Materials most vulnerable to corrosion under insulation are ferritic steels operating in the range of -10 0C to 120 0C. Special attention is required for equipment and piping that operate below the atmospheric dew point.

Corrosion under insulation can be prevented through good insulation practices. Installation of good weatherproofing absolutely must. Further these should be properly and periodically maintained. Yet small quantities of moisture will sneak in through the insulation and to guard against this corrosion, a protective paint is recommended under the insulation.

Enhancing Engineering Education

Seven IIT's and IISc Bangalore have come together to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing video and web based courses under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning funded by the Ministry of HRD. The contents of these courses have now been made available on a website for a broader audience. There are about 70 courses on the menu, but no chemical engineering courses as yet.

Oil Mist Lubrication

Oil Mist Lubrication improves the reliability of pumps and machinery by several notches through reduced bearing failures and improved mechanical seal life. There are other benefits too including a 40 % saving in lube oil consumption. Why then is it not catching on? Lack of knowledge perhaps.

Guidelines for Oil Mist Lubrication

Concept and Best Practices

Case Studies

Five C's of Commissioning and The Making of a Complete Engineer

Commissioning is a series of activities that culminates in the start-up of a plant. The activities of commissioning get underway when the plant has achieved Mechanical Completion, an important contractual milestone in the life of a project.

Commissioning engineers carry out the five checks for

1) Completeness (of the system)

2) Correctness (of the installation)

3) Cleanliness (to avoid contamination and choking)

4) Containment (to avoid leaks)

5) Calibration (of instruments and controllers)

Commissioning calls for not only technical but also man-management skills as engineers need to get the work done from contractor's and client's personnel. Comissioning engineers have to think out of their box and yet also display oodles of patience and perseverance.

Though commissioning needs special skill sets and attitudes, when the same team of engineers who have been involved in the design and engineering phases, commission the plant, it gives a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment to the individuals concerned. It also ensures that the learnings at site are absorbed in the future projects. Commisioning makes an engineer complete.

Scale-up

Scaling up a process from laboratory to pilot plant and further to commercial scale production is one of the most challenging and exciting subject for a chemical engineer, as it calls for in-depth understanding of chemical engineering principles and innovative out of the box thinking to translate a concept into reality. As we are organising a workshop this weekend on 'Process Development and Scale-up in Fine Chemical Industry', I am transported back to my classroom and seized by the excitement of it all over again. As I was browsing the Internet for some good reading material on scale-up, I was struck by the paucity of good free resources. But I came across this gem of an article on Scale up of liquid and semisolid manufacturing processes that points out some major obstacles to effective scale-up and describes methods available to pharmaceutical scientists for addressing scalability issues.

Popular Again?

From England comes a piece of news that should warm the hearts of chemical engineers – the number of students enrolling into chemical engineering courses in UK have increased by 9 % this year. According to IChemE, chemical engineering is fast becoming a more popular choice for young adults entering higher education compared with other mainstream science and engineering disciplines. But here in India, the scenario continues to be gloomy, with chemical engineering languishing as the bottom of the barrel choice for engineering aspirants.If the promised investment blitz in petrochemical projects materialises in the next five years, we could be in for some serious shortage of skilled chemical engineers. It is time for all of us to take some pre-emptive initiatives