Monday, 15 February 2016
Petrochemical Engineer....WHY?
I never wanted to be involved in petroleum.I always wanted to be and still want to be an aeronautic engineer.But i still had a pinch of petroleum in my mind, because of the money it brings and everything. give me advice Petrochemical or Aeronautic engineering.
PLA - Polylactic acid
PLA - Polylactic acid
Polylactic acid (PLA) plastic is an increasingly common, environmentally friendly, alternative to conventional petrochemical-based mass plastics. But it's a costly process. Researchers at the University of Leuven's Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis have published research in the journal Science that suggests a new method of simplifying the PLA production process and making it waste-free.
According to lead researcher Michiel Dusselier: "Instead of (the current) two-step process currently, it's a one-step process. Our process runs about 100 degrees centigrade lower in temperature and our productivities, which is kind of how much product can you make per volume of reactor per hour are much higher and our product is also much cleaner, so we don't make side products, for instance, caused by racemisation or other side reactions because we work at a lower temperature."
PLA is derived from renewable resources, including the sugar in maize and sugarcane. Fermentation turns the sugar into lactic acid, which is a building block for polylactic acid. The production process for PLA is expensive
because of the number of intermediary steps, which Dusselier's team
says it has eliminated. In traditional PLA production lactic acid is fed
into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic, low quality,
material under high temperature and in a vacuum. The pre-product is
subsequently broken down into building blocks for PLA.
"Our process is based on condensation reaction in which we will contact lactic acid with a zeolite and zeolites are famous catalysts from refinery and petrochemical industry, and these catalysts are micro porous materials - sort of nano sponges - so they have a huge internal surfaces and they also have limited space inside their voids, so it's kind of a reactive sponge," explained Dusselier.
PLA will degrade after a few years in particular environments, while it is also industrially compostable and recyclable. It's biocompatible, so suitable for medical use, and is also one of the few plastics suitable for 3D printing.
Dusselier says the Leuven process has a selectivity (efficiency) of 85 percent, compared to between 60-70 percent for other PLA alternatives, and is far more productive in terms of how much product can be made per volume of reactor. He told Reuters the remaining side products of traditional PLA processes is waste, whereas the new method could recycle the remaining 15 percent by extraction and put back into the reactor, eventually providing a zero waste process.
Supervising professor Bert Sels expects the new patented method to be an industrial game-changer. "The impact, I think, will be very great in the sense that we now have a very competitive process, where there is a monopoly at the moment," said Sels. "I think there will now be much more players in the market giving you the product at much lower prices and I think this will maybe really be the start of the PLA into the bio-plastic business."
The patent was recently sold to a petrochemical company which plans to apply the production process on an industrial scale.
"The invention was actually done within the university itself, but we had an agreement now with a petrochemical company that sold the patent and is now trying to upscale the process to see whether or not this is commercially feasible," said Sels.
The Leuven team says that PLA will never fully replace petroleum-based plastics because objects such as toilet drain pipes are not meant to be biodegradable. But they insist that there is market for PLA and that by making it cheaper and greener they can help the global economy and reduce pollution.
Polylactic acid (PLA) plastic is an increasingly common, environmentally friendly, alternative to conventional petrochemical-based mass plastics. But it's a costly process. Researchers at the University of Leuven's Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis have published research in the journal Science that suggests a new method of simplifying the PLA production process and making it waste-free.
According to lead researcher Michiel Dusselier: "Instead of (the current) two-step process currently, it's a one-step process. Our process runs about 100 degrees centigrade lower in temperature and our productivities, which is kind of how much product can you make per volume of reactor per hour are much higher and our product is also much cleaner, so we don't make side products, for instance, caused by racemisation or other side reactions because we work at a lower temperature."
PLA is derived from renewable resources, including the sugar in maize and sugarcane. Fermentation turns the sugar into lactic acid, which is a building block for polylactic acid. The production process for PLA is expensive
because of the number of intermediary steps, which Dusselier's team
says it has eliminated. In traditional PLA production lactic acid is fed
into a reactor and converted into a type of pre-plastic, low quality,
material under high temperature and in a vacuum. The pre-product is
subsequently broken down into building blocks for PLA."Our process is based on condensation reaction in which we will contact lactic acid with a zeolite and zeolites are famous catalysts from refinery and petrochemical industry, and these catalysts are micro porous materials - sort of nano sponges - so they have a huge internal surfaces and they also have limited space inside their voids, so it's kind of a reactive sponge," explained Dusselier.
PLA will degrade after a few years in particular environments, while it is also industrially compostable and recyclable. It's biocompatible, so suitable for medical use, and is also one of the few plastics suitable for 3D printing
.Dusselier says the Leuven process has a selectivity (efficiency) of 85 percent, compared to between 60-70 percent for other PLA alternatives, and is far more productive in terms of how much product can be made per volume of reactor. He told Reuters the remaining side products of traditional PLA processes is waste, whereas the new method could recycle the remaining 15 percent by extraction and put back into the reactor, eventually providing a zero waste process.
Supervising professor Bert Sels expects the new patented method to be an industrial game-changer. "The impact, I think, will be very great in the sense that we now have a very competitive process, where there is a monopoly at the moment," said Sels. "I think there will now be much more players in the market giving you the product at much lower prices and I think this will maybe really be the start of the PLA into the bio-plastic business."
The patent was recently sold to a petrochemical company which plans to apply the production process on an industrial scale.
"The invention was actually done within the university itself, but we had an agreement now with a petrochemical company that sold the patent and is now trying to upscale the process to see whether or not this is commercially feasible," said Sels.
The Leuven team says that PLA will never fully replace petroleum-based plastics because objects such as toilet drain pipes are not meant to be biodegradable. But they insist that there is market for PLA and that by making it cheaper and greener they can help the global economy and reduce pollution.
Monday, 15 July 2013
MY OPINION ON PRINCE ADE-JOHNSON
Prince Ade-Johnson a man of discipline and fun.Mr prince as we all call him is an Experienced ICT Education Instructor and Consultant, Internet Marketing Consultant, Mobile Marketing Consultant, Social Media Management Consultant and Public Speaker.His goal is to see that his students receive High grades in their academics. He works hard to help his students who are in school to achieve their goals. He helps his students especially in LISS (Lighthouse International Secondary School) to be focused so they can be far ahead of their peers. He is happy and fulfilled when his students are succeeding.
He is an Internet marketer.He is also into Internet hosting and web designs.
He is a very good and nice teacher.He makes the class interesting in order for the students to enjoy the class and remember what they have been taught. Mr prince though he is fun, he is also strict .He treats his students as friends but still disciplines them.He is the owner of Khristos Solutions Network
ICT Education, Internet Marketing, Mobile Marketing And Social Media Marketing ConsultantKhristos Solutions Network
ICT Education. Helping Local business owners, organisations, political associations, religious groups etc promote their businesses and organisations online through the use of Internet Marketing, Mobile Marketing and Social Media Marketing. This enables them to increase and retain their customer base or membership for a high return on investment.
Experienced Internet Marketing Consultant, Mobile Marketing Consultant and Social Media Marketing Consultant. My job is to help business owners attract more paying customers and clients to their business using the Internet, Mobile and Social Media Marketing techniques. This allows them to sell more, make more money while spending less on advertising cost.
Petrochemical Engineering in Nigeria
Petrochemical engineering is an aspect of engineering concerned with the activities related to production of hydrocarbons,which can be either crude oil or natural gas.Exploration and production are deemed to fall within the upstream of the oil and gas industry.
Types of petroleum engineers
Reservoir engineers
Drilling engineers
Production engineers
petroleum engineering
petroleum engineering, the branch of engineering that involves the development and exploitation of crude oil and natural gas fields as well as the technical analysis and forecasting of their future performance. Its origins lie in both mining engineering and geology. Thepetroleum engineer, whose aim is to extract gaseous and liquid hydrocarbon products from the earth, is concerned with drilling, producing, processing, and transporting these products and handling all the related economic and regulatory considerations.
History
The foundations of petroleum engineering were established during the 1890s in California. There geologists were employed to correlate oil-producing zones and water zones from well to well to prevent extraneous water from entering oil-producing zones. From this came the recognition of the potential for applying technology to oil-field development. The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers (AIME) established a Technical Committee on Petroleum in 1914. In 1957 the name of the AIME was changed to the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers.
Petroleum technology courses were introduced at the University of Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1910 and included courses in oil and gas law and industry practices; in 1915 the university granted the first degree in petroleum engineering. Also in 1910 the University of California at Berkeley offered its first courses in petroleum engineering and in 1915 established a four-year curriculum in petroleum engineering. After these pioneering efforts, professional programs spread throughout the United States and other countries.
From 1900 to 1920 petroleum engineering focused on drilling problems, such as establishing casing points for water shutoff, designing casing strings, and improving the mechanical operations in drilling and well pumping. In the 1920s petroleum engineers sought means to improve drilling practices and to improve well design by use of proper tubing sizes, chokes, and packers. They designed new forms of artificial lift, primarily rod pumping and gas lift, and studied the ways in which methods of production affected gas–oil ratios and rates of production. The technology of drilling fluids was advanced, and directional drilling became a common practice.
The economic crisis that resulted from abundant discoveries in about 1930, notably in the giant East Texas Field, caused petroleum engineering to focus on the entire oil–water–gas reservoir system rather than on the individual well. Studying the optimum spacing of wells in an entire field led to the concept of reservoir engineering. During this period the mechanics of drilling and production were not neglected. Drilling penetration rates increased approximately 100 percent from 1932 to 1937.
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