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EXCHAN ER Tackling all the heated Chemical Engineering topics

CHEMS is onto a good one here! THIRD times the Charm!

Reading this… wont guarantee you a degree but it will guarantee you a highly efficient procrastination process

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Words from the editors!

Hi reader!

Welcome to the 3rd edition of The Exchanger, and the first for 2011. Exams are nearly upon us already— the exam timetable is already out (Friday 13th May), so its time to start some early cramming. Ed and I have both finished our final year in chemical engineering (we are both doing double degrees—I am finishing off petroleum engineering and Ed, finance) so we understand that your brains have probably nearly turned to mush with all the complex equations and theory the lecturers have bombarded you with over the semester. We have put together a little bit of light reading to pro-vide a break from studying—and its chemical engineering related so its guilt free!

We hope you enjoy getting to know Dr Sheng Dai, reading about the suc-cess of our annual Industry Night and even completing a chemical engi-neering crossword!

Also its time to get out your diary’s and cancel all prior engagements for Friday 5th August (after the AUES BBQ). It is anticipated that the previous pub crawls—Tanked Slurries and Plastercard, will have nothing on the 2011 event!

Ed and Kate

And thanks to Nick and Tom who organised the Sangria BBQ poster... Check out their shenanigans.

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INDUSTRY NIGHT—A SUCCESS

Fun had by all

“My green tie was probably the standout” Brendan Moore

Olivia D’Argo

The Joint Industry Night, held on Wednesday 13th April, was the first time the CHEMS Society has joined forces with the University of Ade-laide Chapter of the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engi-neers (ISPE) and the Adelaide Chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) to put on the event. Over 25 companies attended on the night, spanning across the three disciplines; including BHB Billi-ton, Santos and Hospira.

CHEMS President Brendan Moore (Green Tie) enjoying the night with Ken Davey (Left) and Brian O’Neil (Middle)

The night was an enormous success, with not only a record number of companies attending but over 100 students attending also. The event allowed students, faculty members and company representa-tives to discuss the many opportunities available to chemical, petro-leum and pharmaceutical engineers. Students in their final year were given the chance to learn more about graduate work opportunities,

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while students in years below were able to discover the different sorts of vacation work companies offer. Students were also able to find out what is involved in the application process and what compa-nies are looking for in their employees.

2010 Graduate Cameron Hall (Shorter one) with fellow KBR employee

The evening was also quite enjoyable; food and beverages were consumed and raffles were drawn.

The CHEMS Society would like to thank the industry, students and the school for their support through out the evening.

Especially our major sponsor for 2011, Rio Tinto and all the companies that donated beverages for the night; Lion Nathan, Ashton Valley Fresh, Schweppes and Orlando Wines Pernod Ricard.

Marie-Claire Roumi (Behind the box of goodies)

our happy first prize winner

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Getting to know you…Getting to know you…Getting to know you…

Dr. Sheng DaiDr. Sheng DaiDr. Sheng Dai

with Linda Tran

Name: Dr. Sheng Dai

Where did you complete your bachelor’s de-gree?

In China, ZheJiang University.

Where did you complete your PhD and what was your topic?

I completed my PhD in Singapore, NanYang Technological Uni. My main area of study was polymers and surfactants for industrial formu-lations.

Why did you choose to study chem eng?

At the time (1980’s), it was easy to get a job in chemical engineering and there was a high sal-ary too. Also, I was interested in chemistry (my parents jobs are a chemist and a chemical en-gineer) and other topics that are applicable to real life.

What is your main area of research?

Novel polymer material for early stage cancer detection which I receive a lot of funding for. Also, performance composite membranes for seawater desalination and smart polymers for tissue engineering.

Where else have you taught?

(Interviewer: You mentioned Canada a few times in Materials III)

I spent 4.5 years in Canada as a post-doctor

research fellow, visiting research fellow and research fellow (they are all different levels) at the University of Toronto, Alberta and McMas-ter.

What are your interests outside of uni?

Travelling (I travel at least 1 month out of every year), mountain climbing in winter, fish-ing in summer, classical music and cooking (quote: “only guys good at cooking do good in chemistry” *laughs*)

Reasons why chem eng is good?

1. It is a very fundamental and important disci-pline. 2. All other engineering disciplines and issues are related to chem eng.

Reasons why chem eng is not so good?

It is an old and traditional discipline so it must keep growing to keep up with the modern world.

What is your favourite subject? Least favour-ite?

My favourite subjects are thermodynamics and organic chemistry. My least favourite is maths (but I still had to learn it!).

What would you consider yourself a bigger fan of CSTR, PFR or Batch reactor?

CSTR, because it is like our job. The university must continually take in new knowledge (input) and teach it to the students (output). [Interviewer: good analogy!]

My copy of Perry’s is best used for…getting all the fundamental data and references related to chem eng. It is our dictionary.

When I was young I wanted to be… a scien-tist, however, I am one now *laughs*

What super talent/ability would you most like to have and why?

I would like to fly. It is hard to say why because it’s just a feeling.

What are you most proud of?

I am very happy with my current career be-cause it gives me a chance to do advanced re-search and also to deliver knowledge to stu-dents.

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A Chemical Crossword... Get your granny on and attempt our chemical engineering based crossword... By Steph Tyszta

ACROSS 1. A technical or engineering change to a plant or equipment 2. A non-metallic univalent element that is normally a colourless and odourless, highly flammable, diatomic gas 3. A mixture containing two components 4. _________ energy 5. Used to remove impurities from a gas DOWN 1. A cylindrical tower used for storage 2. A process for identifying hazards 3. CHEMS major sponsor 4. The transfer of heat through a fluid 5. A food typically eaten after a CHEMS pubcrawl 6. ________ equation which shows how rate constants vary with temperature 7. Place where experiments are carried out

Solutions page 15

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Vacation Student Experiences... Find out what

David Bott For the twelve weeks from the 30th November 2010 until the end of Febru-ary 2011, I was working as a Vacation Student Metallurgist with BHP Billiton at their Copper/Uranium mine at Olympic Dam. The best way to describe my time with BHP is as follows: “Learnt tonnes, got dirty, and had fun”. My work varied widely. While at Olympic Dam I worked on shift (both day and night), where I worked alongside the techies to assist in running the plant. I was assigned a project involving the optimisation of one of the filter presses on site, and was also involved in lab work and analysis of plant data. Highlights included working night shift, climbing inside a neutralisation tank and cleaning it with a fire hose, and the moment when I worked out my pro-ject might actually work and save money. While my project was not final-ised in the twelve weeks it is ongoing and I will hopefully be analysing and discussing the results of the final experiments when/if I find some free time this semester. The best part of the experience however, was the people. All the workers I associated with at Olympic Dam (especially my supervisors) were eager to help me learn and made the working environment so great that I did not even dread the 4:30am alarm to get on the bus to work at 5:15am every morning. Furthermore, the other vaca-tion students (affectionately known as “Vaccies”) made such great friends and I regularly catch up with those from Adelaide and talk to those who live interstate. I have since been offered and accepted a graduate role with BHP Billi-ton Olympic Dam to begin in February 2011. Olympic Dam was a great place to do work experience and I believe that being there, on-site, was what confirmed in my mind that I definitely want to be a chemical engineer.

Stephanie Tyszta Hi my name is Stephanie Tyszta and I’m in my fourth year of a double degree in chemical engineering and finance. Last summer I completed 12 weeks of vacation work at Adelaide Brighton Cement, Birkenhead. The vacation program gave me a great opportunity to gain hands on experience and apply my knowledge of chemical engineering to the cement production industry. As part of the program I completed 4 projects. The two key projects I participated in were testing the performance of the cement mill and investigating the properties of general purpose cement contain-ing 5% cement kiln dust (a waste byproduct from the kiln burning process). In order to investigate the cement mill performance I collected a number of samples from within the cement mill. To gain authorized entry into the cement mill, Adelaide Brighton first arranged for me to attend a two day confined space training session where I had to participate in a simulated confined space practical. Once the samples had been collected I was trained in the laboratory to perform the relevant lab tests and a final report was written on my findings. To test the addition of cement kiln dust (CKD) to general purpose cement two trials were required. The first trial was supervised by one of the senior engineers and ran for four hours. The second trail ran for 11 hours, producing 800 tons of cement, and I was given the opportunity to conduct the trial without supervision. Conducting the trial unsupervised was a great deal of responsibility and gave me experience in man-aging time, people and company resources. Aside from the project work I com-

pleted, I also participated in day to day activities and attended morning meetings, weekly safety briefings and stop-page meetings. This kept me up to date with what was happening in the plant and provided me with a broader view of what each engineers/managers job entails. Importantly, Adelaide Brighton has a strong safety focus which pro-vided me with an insight into key safety measures required in running a large production plant. Working at Adelaide Brighton was a valuable experience and I recommend anyone looking for hands on work should apply for their vaca-tion program. Everyday, at least once, I was out in the plant getting covered in cement dust!

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it’s like to do hard time over the summer!

Kate Nelligan Over the summer I relocated to Brisbane for the floods… Er, I mean to do my work experi-ence with Origin Energy. I worked in the Petroleum Engineering technical function, how-ever I worked on a planning project and learn't more about economics and project man-agement than technical engineering. It was helpful that I was able to understand the basic economics having just taken in my previous semester, Plant Design. Although I didn't do any technical engineering work, I learn't a great deal about how a large company like Ori-gin "works". As a contributing employee, you need to get a feel for how decisions are made within the company you work for because ultimately technical work is done to re-duce uncertainty so a decision can be made, whether it be costing a piece of equipment or determining the porosity of a pay zone. I also got to go on a field trip to Origin's Talinga Coal Seam Gas field. CSG is a booming in-dustry in Queensland and is considered an unconventional petroleum resource. The Talinga plant was located near Chinchilla and I had to drive through the flood-affected Lockyer Valley. The trip was great because it really put into perspective the amount of in-frastructure needed to develop a CSG field.

James Thomas During the 2010/2011 summer vacation period, I did 12 weeks of full time work experience at Penrice Soda. Penrice Soda is based at Osborne and is Australia’s only manufacturer of soda ash and bicarbonate soda. Soda ash (Na2CO3) is used in the production of a variety of products such as glass, building materials and washing powder. Bicarbonate soda (NaHCO3) is used in variety of industries such as the food and pharmaceutical industry. Penrice also own and operate a limestone quarry at Angaston, in the Barossa Valley. I was worked on a project analysing the performance of their lime kilns, which are used to burn limestone (CaCO3) to form lime (CaO) and carbon dioxide. This involved developing a mass and energy balance in Microsoft Excel. Heat transfer principles were applied to quantify the heat losses through the kiln walls. I also spent some time doing laboratory testing to determine the conversion of CaCO3, in addition to performing gas analyses with a portable electronic gas analyser. Through this, I was able to produce a report to the engineering and production team summarising my results along with a series of recommendations for im-proved performance of the kilns. Prior to this work experience, I did not know if I really wanted to be an engineer any more (third year can be so disheartening). However, I found that I really enjoyed my experience at Penrice Soda, which has helped to put my studies

into perspective and reinvigorated my ambition. It was also a great opportunity to be able to finally apply knowledge from some of these engineering subjects—and it turns out they are not as useless as I once thought! My advice to those in third year and below is not to get over-whelmed by the pressures of university studies and to remember that university is designed to challenge you. Even if you’ve struggled through, just remember that if you’ve made it this far through your degree, you are capable of anything.

Ed Williams Over the summer of 2009/10 I was lucky enough to receive an internship with San-tos, working with their Plant Support team. This twelve week work experience was challenging however enjoyable as my project was one of great interest to the people who I was directly working for. Hence any findings and results that I produced were met with great curiosity and enthusiasm. I also had the opportunity to work up at their major gas plant at Moomba on occasion and was also welcomed into one of the social sporting teams. However it wasn’t all fun, some of the work was tedious and work on excel was a major part of my three months. Overall it really was a good ex-perience at Santos, working with people who were genuinely interested in what they were doing.

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Interested in the

opportunity to

volunteer overseas?

Interested in the

opportunity to apply

your engineering skills

in practical situations?

The Youth Ambassadors for Development Program

(YADP) presents this opportunity to young Austra-

lians, by fully funding placements of skilled young

Australians between the age of 18 to 30 in develop-

ing countries in Asia, the Pacific and Africa. As young

chemical engineering students – to be young chemi-

cal engineers, YOU! can get involved in the environ-

ment (water and sanitation, science conservation),

infrastructure (engineering, risk management) and

rural development (water and sanitation, research)

sectors. The duration of this placement can be from

3 months to 12 months and will be fully funded by

the Australian Government’s overseas aid agency

AusAID. This is your chance to use your engineering

skills to contribute to the community!

If you are interested please visit:

http://www.ayad.com.au

One such opportunity presents itself in the form of wa-

ter treatment in Cameroon. Lecturer Dr. David Lewis

and PHD student Kenneth Anchang Yongabi from the

University of Adelaide’s School of Chemical Engineering

are involved in this project which employs the Moringa

Oleifera plant and other plant based coagulants which

contain antimicrobial properties to disinfect water.

Currently, Kenneth is in Cameroon setting up two pilot

plants for water treatment processes that produce po-

table water using Moringa integrated sand filter drums

(see picture). There are two secondary schools in rural

Cameroon with water treatment plants set up to edu-

cate the children about the mechanisms of water treat-

ment and to allow them to take this knowledge back to

their communities. The sustainability of this project is a

main advantage, as the plant is in abundance, very ac-

cessible in the rural communities and is a low cost ma-

terial in comparison to chlorine. n

By Zhi Oh and Frances Williams

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Thumbs Up Adiabatic Reactions- Way to keep your entropy constant Both CHEMS Events so far have been brilliant but as always most pumped for our wander to North Adelaide Justin Beiber- What a lad

Thumbs Down

The loss of the 4th year room

Mother natures mood over the summer

Breaking my nose and getting 9 stitches, three days before a job

interview in Sydney

Behavioural questions in Graduate Applications,

“Describe a time when you’ve been in a situation where......”

THUMBS UP…. With Ed Williams

The eternal optimist who sheds some light on the

funnier side of Uni Life!

Crossword Solutions

Chems Pub Crawl Friday 5th August

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M O D I F I C A T I O N

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A V B I N A R Y

Z A E T I

O R C O R

P R T O

M E C H A N I C A L S

E O A

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The CHEMS Committee

Thanks Our Two Major Sponsors