Tag: Institution of Chemical Engineers

CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Processes & Safety

Every month throughout our centenary year, we will be asking an IChemE member to write a blog about each of the centenary themes. The themes have been selected to highlight and celebrate the enormous contribution that chemical engineering has made to society over the last century.

IChemE Fellow Ian Thomas, who was part of the editorial panel looking at processes & safety shared his choices of elements to celebrate, communicate and inspire.

Continue reading CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Processes & Safety

CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Energy

Every month throughout our centenary year, we will be asking an IChemE member to write a blog about each of the centenary themes. The themes have been selected to highlight and celebrate the enormous contribution that chemical engineering has made to society over the last century.

IChemE Fellow and Past President Dr Desmond King, who was part of the editorial panel looking at energy, picks out his choices of elements to celebrate, communicate and inspire.

Continue reading CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Energy

Meet a difference maker…in affordable energy – Dr Mauro Luberti

In this blog series, which is part of our recently launched Sustainability Hub, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.

To mark Earth Day today (22 April 2022) in this blog, Dr Mauro Luberti explains the two different gas separation processes he’s using and explains the specialised laboratory equipment he’s developed to predict separation performance of adsorption processes. He’s also looking at ways to capture carbon dioxide more efficiently from power and hydrogen plants, and the importance of decarbonising these industrial sectors.

Continue reading Meet a difference maker…in affordable energy – Dr Mauro Luberti

Meet a difference maker…in health and wellbeing – John Civardi

In this blog series, which is part of our recently launched Sustainability Hub, we’re speaking to chemical engineers across the world making a difference to make sustainable practices and products a reality and more accessible to all for the wider benefit of our society and globe.

Today on World Health Day (7 April 2022), John Civardi talks about his experience as a water engineer, and how water is being contaminated with pharmaceutical waste, which could lead to the development of drug-resistant bacteria. He also explains why it’s important for chemical engineers to help solve this issue for better treatment and cleaning of waterways, groundwater and other water sources to prevent future threats to humans, animals and the environment.

Continue reading Meet a difference maker…in health and wellbeing – John Civardi

CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Social Experience

Every month throughout our centenary year, we will be asking an IChemE member to write a blog about each of the centenary themes. The themes have been selected to highlight and celebrate the enormous contribution that chemical engineering has made to society over the last century.

IChemE Honorary Fellow Dr Marlene Kanga, who was part of the editorial panel looking at social experience, picks out her choices of elements to celebrate, communicate and inspire.

Continue reading CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Social Experience

CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Education & Technology

Every month throughout our centenary year, we will be asking an IChemE member to write a blog about each of the centenary themes. The themes have been selected to highlight and celebrate the enormous contribution that chemical engineering has made to society over the last century.

IChemE Fellow John Kenez, who was part of the editorial panel looking at education & technology, picks out his choices of elements to celebrate, communicate and inspire.

Continue reading CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Education & Technology

CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Sustainability & Environment

Every month throughout our centenary year, we will be asking an IChemE member to write a blog about each of the centenary themes. The themes have been selected to highlight and celebrate the enormous contribution that chemical engineering has made to society over the last century.

IChemE member Dr Nikolay Cherkasov, who was part of the editorial panel looking at sustainability & environment, picks out his choices of elements to celebrate, communicate and inspire.

Continue reading CENTENARY BLOG: Spotlight on Sustainability & Environment

Behind the scenes: interviews for a TV documentary on engineering

Six IChemE members recently featured in the second series of TV documentary series, Disasters Engineered. 

Aired on the National Geographic channel, the documentary examined various chemical, structural, and mechanical engineering incidents. Each episode looked at the causes of two incidents, why and how they happened, how they affected people, and what changes have been made in the industry as a result.

So, we caught up with three of the members – Zsuzsanna Gyenes, Fiona Macleod and Stephen Richardson – to understand how they felt to be part of the series, and why they feel it is important for the public to see chemical and process engineers giving expert accounts of safety incidents.

Continue reading Behind the scenes: interviews for a TV documentary on engineering

CENTENARY BLOG: Celebrating a century of achievements and a future of success

As 2022 marks IChemE’s centenary, we are celebrating our profession and the members who have shaped it. IChemE Fellow and Past President, John McGagh, chaired the centenary project’s volunteer committee who have developed a year-long programme of activity to celebrate this incredible milestone. In the first blog of our new series to mark the centenary, John talks about how the celebrations evolved into the packed programme which kicks off this month.

Continue reading CENTENARY BLOG: Celebrating a century of achievements and a future of success

Achieving a Just Transition and boosting skills for chemical engineers

What is a just transition and how does it affect chemical engineers?

There are many definitions of a “just transition” online, all with a similar theme in equally supporting workers in high carbon intensive industries to move into new lines of work, and the communities and economies they serve.

The Chemical Engineer looks at this in depth in two recent feature articles. In the first, reporter Amanda Doyle explains what the energy transition is and why it must be fair for workers in high carbon industries, while the second article analyses a survey of oil and gas workers, revealing how the energy transition affects them and what they feel could be done to support them.

Continue reading Achieving a Just Transition and boosting skills for chemical engineers

GUEST BLOG: Individual Case Procedure

At IChemE we’re undertaking a series of projects that aim to improve member services, service delivery and the sustainability of our Institution.

One of these is an overarching project called Programme SMART which, as IChemE’s Vice President of Qualifications Ainslie Just discussed in our recent blog, aims to deliver sustainable membership growth.

In today’s blog, Rob Best who is the Chair of the Individual Case Procedure Task and Finish Group, provides an update on one of the projects in the “Flexible Pathways to Membership” area of Programme SMART.

Continue reading GUEST BLOG: Individual Case Procedure

Influencing policy: pushing R&D investment and the food agenda

Our members want to know more about how we support them to influence the development of national policies that affect chemical engineering.

Following this feedback from our member engagement survey, we are bringing you regular updates on the various policy areas in which we work with our members to provide evidence that inform policy- and decision-makers.

In our latest blog, we explain more on our collaborative approach with the National Engineering Policy Centre to urge the Government to spend more on research and development, what’s new for IChemE’s Energy Centre, as well as an update on the various consultation responses that we are working on.

Continue reading Influencing policy: pushing R&D investment and the food agenda

Influencing policy: the future of waste and of our building regulations

At IChemE we do a lot behind the scenes to support our members in respect to influencing the development of national policies that affect chemical engineering.

We work in a multitude of policy areas, sharing knowledge and providing evidence to inform policy makers. But we can only create impact by working with you, our members, other professional engineering institutions, and directly with the governments across the world. Progress in this area takes time and requires a consistent and proactive approach.

In our recent member engagement survey, it was clear that our members wanted to understand more about this work. So, we’ll be giving you regular insights via our blog and The Chemical Engineer.

In today’s blog we explain more about our contribution to a government consultation on building regulations and how we also advise on government strategies that could affect the future of electronic, plastic, food and farming waste.

Continue reading Influencing policy: the future of waste and of our building regulations

Chemical engineers review the Industrial Strategy in Parliament #LinksDay18

PLD press

This week eleven representatives – a mixture of Trustees, members, and staff – from IChemE attended the 30th Parliamentary Links Day.

Hosted by the Royal Society of Biology (RSB), the annual event brings together scientists and engineers from across the UK to discuss key issues with MPs and their peers.

This year’s theme was Science and the Industrial Strategy, and included two panel sessions – The Mission and The Target.

The UK government updated the Industrial Strategy on 21 May 2018 to focus on four ‘Grand Challenges’ – Artificial Intelligence and Data, Ageing Society, Clean Growth and the Future of Mobility.

Continue reading Chemical engineers review the Industrial Strategy in Parliament #LinksDay18

What is it like being a chemical engineer in Parliament? – Interview with Erin Johnson, Ashok Kumar Fellow 2017

On 20 January 2017, we announced that chemical engineering postgraduate student Erin Johnson had been awarded the Ashok Kumar Fellowship 2017.

The annual Fellowship, which is jointly supported by IChemE and the North-East England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC), provides one chemical engineer with the opportunity to work the UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) for three months.

During Erin’s time at POST she researched and spoke to experts from academia, industry, government and the third sector, about the fire safety of building materials. Her research culminated in a briefing note (known as a POSTnote) to support MPs and peers in making evidence-based policy decisions on the subject.

Continue reading What is it like being a chemical engineer in Parliament? – Interview with Erin Johnson, Ashok Kumar Fellow 2017

How do you feel female chemical engineers are raising the bar?

 

 

After a successful campaign in 2017, the team behind International Women in Engineering Day, wanted to aim higher for 2018 and have created the theme #RaisingTheBar.

We felt this was a great opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women in engineering and how these successes are ‘Raising the Bar’ for aspiring female engineers.

We wanted to see what our members thought, so asked them: How do you feel female chemical engineers are raising the bar?

Thank you to all the responses we’ve had – it’s been great to see them.

We’ve collated the responses from the chemical engineers below. We’ll be sharing them on Twitter throughout International Women in Engineering Day. Continue reading How do you feel female chemical engineers are raising the bar?

Trust in Energy: Forecasting our Uncertain Future

shutterstock_1011636538In today’s blog post, Jacob Brown of IChemE’s Future Energy Leaders discusses and reflects on the group’s latest event on energy forecasting, and what it means for chemical engineers.

Quote start On the 17th of May 2018, the Future Energy Leaders of the IChemE Energy Centre hosted a panel discussion on the future of energy, and more specifically, on the topic of energy forecasting; i.e. our ability to predict and plan for the imminent changes in our energy demand and supply. More than 20 delegates attended the live event in London, UK – with more than 40 watching online.

In the past, efforts at forecasting our energy system have been very inaccurate. This event brought together experts from a variety of backgrounds to examine why this is, and how we should be using these forecasts. In short, it seems the answer is “don’t just look at the numbers, look at the premises”.

Continue reading Trust in Energy: Forecasting our Uncertain Future

#EarthDay2018: Energy and resource efficiency is key to reducing environmental waste

Reaching a consensus on how to reduce the environmental impact of human activity is challenging, but the desire to bring about change is gathering momentum across the world, and especially in the chemical engineering community.

Today, along with many others across the globe, we’re celebrating Earth Day. The Earth Day Network leads this campaign on 22 April each year with their mission to diversify, educate and activate a worldwide environmental movement.

This year’s theme is to end plastic pollution. Poor consideration of resources through their entire lifecycle not only results in pollution (such as plastics in our rivers and oceans), but also has a wider impact on our planet. Continue reading #EarthDay2018: Energy and resource efficiency is key to reducing environmental waste

World Water Day: my chemical engineering career

All over the world today people will be celebrating World Water Day and reflecting on the current issues facing the world with regards to water scarcity, pollution, flooding and droughts. 2018 is also the Year of Engineering, and it’s clear that engineers will be integral to helping tackle these issues to ensure access to water is safe and sustainable in the years to come.

Chemical engineers working in the water sector are making a huge difference already. In today’s blog, our new Water Special Interest Group Chair, Dr Martin Currie talks about his vibrant water career – working all over the world, and using his engineering prowess to help make a difference in the developing world.

This month’s Year of Engineering theme is ‘Routes into Engineering’ – we hope Martin’s account inspires you to consider a career as a chemical engineer in the water industry.

Continue reading World Water Day: my chemical engineering career

GUEST BLOG: Advocating chemical engineering to the next generation – Madeleine Jones

By day, Chartered Chemical Engineer Madeleine Jones works as Deputy Operations Manager, Legacy Ponds & Silos at Sellafield, and is responsible for three nuclear facilities.

In her spare time, she is a passionate advocate of chemical engineering – promoting engineering to primary and secondary school children, and mentoring new engineering graduates at the nuclear reprocessing and decommissioning company, to inspire the next generation of chemical engineers.

She also actively volunteers for her professional engineering institution, IChemE, with roles including Student Representative on the Midlands Member Group Committee, and Webmaster for IChemE’s North West Member Group Committee.

For all of this – and more – she was recently awarded the Karen Burt Award, after being nominated by IChemE. The annual award is presented by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) to a top Chartered Engineer or Chartered Physicist in memory of Dr Karen Burt.

Continue reading GUEST BLOG: Advocating chemical engineering to the next generation – Madeleine Jones

GUEST BLOG: Advising MPs from a ChemEng perspective – my Ashok Kumar Fellowship

In January 2017, Erin Johnson, a postgraduate chemical engineering student at Imperial College London, UK, was awarded the Ashok Kumar Fellowship 2017.

The annual Fellowship, supported by IChemE and the North-East England process Industry Cluster (NEPIC), grants funding for a graduate chemical engineer to spend three months working at the  UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST). During this time, they get to experience life inside the Houses of Parliament and produce a POSTnote (briefing paper), or assist a government select committee with a current inquiry.

MPs rely on scientists, engineers, and academics to help inform the decisions they make. Erin’s Fellowship began in September, so we thought we’d find out how she’s been getting on.

Name: Erin Johnson
Education: Postgraduate chemical engineering student at Imperial College London, UK
Job Title: PhD candidate
Research interests: Optimisation of biomethane and bio-synthetic natural gas supply chains in the UK. I recently co-authored a white paper on options for a greener gas grid.

 

Continue reading GUEST BLOG: Advising MPs from a ChemEng perspective – my Ashok Kumar Fellowship

10 job hunting tips for chemical engineering graduates

The first semester of university is underway. For some chemical, bio-chemical and process engineering students, it’s their final year; for others it’s their first September for sometime not spent in a lecture theatre or lab.

Those who have recently graduated and haven’t yet found a placement or role at a company, you’re probably thinking hard about your career. For those in their final year, it’s never too early to start getting some ideas of what job you’d like.

Either way, it can be a daunting prospect. Where do you begin? How do you prepare for job hunting and those all important interviews to come?

Here are our top 10 tips to help in your job hunting journey.

Continue reading 10 job hunting tips for chemical engineering graduates

Be inspired to advance process safety worldwide

Each year hundreds of professionals gather to be a part of our flagship process safety conference Hazards.

Process safety is fundamental to chemical, biochemical and process engineers. IChemE’s three-day event encourages them to come together and discuss: the current best practice, the latest developments, lessons learned in the process industry, and how to make operations even safer.

The conference was first held in 1960, and is now is an annual event. Hazards brings together around 100 presenters from leading industry practitioners, researchers and regulators, as well as keynote speakers invited from industry.

Continue reading Be inspired to advance process safety worldwide

Why do we need female engineers? #INWED17

Why do we need female engineers? 

It’s a simple, in some ways controversial question, that we put out to IChemE members a couple of weeks ago to mark today’s International Women In Engineering Day.

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We received a fantastic response from chemical engineers working all over the world – take a look at them below and stay tuned on Twitter where we will be sharing them throughout the day.

How will you or your organisation be celebrating gender diversity today?

Continue reading Why do we need female engineers? #INWED17

KBR are #RaisingProfiles for International Women in Engineering Day

INWED LogoTomorrow is International Women In Engineering Day (INWED), and it’s been great to see an overwhelmingly positive response from our community in the form of events and activities.

The INWED website has some fantastic ideas for organisations to improve their diversity agenda, from organising networking events to completing an equal pay audit. It isn’t too late for your company to get involved, visit the website for more ideas.

Global engineering services provider KBR, a Gold Corporate Partner with the IChemE, is already ahead of the curve. Aspire, an employee-driven resources group committed to female engineers and promoting gender parity, was launched in Houston, US in 2016. In January it was rolled-out across the pond, and Aspire UK was born.

Aspire UK

To celebrate #INWED2017 the Aspire UK team joined with KBR’s graduate network, Impact, to host students from a local school. They attended the KBR Campus in Leatherhead today (Thursday 22 June) and inspired to take a career path in engineering.

The students were immersed in a working engineering environment and given several interactive workshop presentations about engineering, the opportunities the profession presents, and the pathways into an engineering career. They attended a networking lunch where they were able to meet with more engineers from KBR, including the business leaders.

The final activity was a team building game, where the students had to use their problem solving skills to build an Oil Rig Jacket Structure (oil platform) out of paper.

We caught up with the engineers who spoke at the event.

Continue reading KBR are #RaisingProfiles for International Women in Engineering Day

IChemE Energy Centre responds to US withdrawal from Paris Agreement

This press release was published on the IChemE Media Centre.

Continue reading IChemE Energy Centre responds to US withdrawal from Paris Agreement

Guest Blog: Rhamnolipids promise a renewable revolution

Environmental impact is something that has become increasingly important for organisations and consumers in recent years. It is a topic discussed on a global scale by world leaders, and an issue of contention for many.

For some chemical engineers it has provided an opportunity for them to use their knowledge of chemical processes to create environmentally-friendly alternatives to the products we rely on daily.

In today’s blog Dr Dan Derr gives an insight into biosurfactants – which he hopes will spark a ‘renewable revolution’ in the fast-moving consumer goods industry.

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Name:
Dr Daniel Derr

Current Position:
Project Leader, Internal Research & Development, Logos Technologies

Bio:
Dan gained his PhD from Colorado State University, and went on to study bio-based jet fuels and photocatalysis at General Electric’s Global Research.

Following this, he led an integrated BioRefinery effort called the Corn to Cellulosic Migration (CCM), focusing on the migration of billions of dollars of capital deployed in today’s corn ethanol industry toward cost-effective production of greener ethanol from corn stover, switchgrass and woodchips.

Now working for Logos Technologies, Derr is currently focused on NatSurFact® – a rhamnolipid-based line of biosurfactants.

Continue reading Guest Blog: Rhamnolipids promise a renewable revolution

10 things chemical engineers learned from #Hazards27

Risk will never be eliminated, but it can be greatly reduced.

Our flagship process safety conference Hazards continues to build momentum and we were pleased to welcome over 300 delegates to Hazards 27, at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, UK, last week. Various speakers, workshops and exhibitors from across the world gave excellent insight, advice and tips into the ways to review process safety practices, and useful services and products that could help improve process safety performance.

One of the most anticipated talks of the conference is the Trevor Kletz memorial lecture. Last year, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave gave some great insight into the RAF Nimrod enquiry, and how it could be applied to engineering. This year Formula 1 Analyst Mark Gallagher took to the stage, drawing parallels between risk management in the world of motorsport and the process industries.

Continue reading 10 things chemical engineers learned from #Hazards27

Think you have a construction contract? Well, think again.

For chemical engineers working as contractors in the design and construction of a plant, your contract is key to ensuring that your rights are protected. However, the lines are often blurred when it comes to which activities are covered by the Construction Act and which aren’t.

The Construction Act (also known as the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act) came into force in 1998. It fundamentally changed the nature of contracts in the construction industry, through the introduction of statutory implied terms regarding payment and rights to adjudication. These terms were introduced to address concerns that unfair payment practices were contributing to a high level of insolvencies in the construction sector.

What is a construction contract?

Now, if you are working on a new plant or structure, you should have a contract in place. Whether this is a construction contract as defined by the Construction Act (a contract for the carrying out of construction operations), depends upon the nature of works.

It’s in the definition of construction operations where confusion can arise as a number of activities within key industries are excluded.

What activities are excluded?

Drilling for, or the extraction of, oil and natural gas is explicitly excluded as a construction operation. Certain activities in relation to nuclear processing, power generation and the production of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, oil, gas or steel are also all excluded from the ambit of the Construction Act.

So what?

Continue reading Think you have a construction contract? Well, think again.

Guest Blog: How have chemical engineers advanced wastewater management? #WorldWaterDay

How have chemical engineers advanced wastewater management? #WorldWaterDay

It’s World Water Day and to celebrate Chris Short, Chair of our Water Special Interest Group has given his thoughts on this year’s theme – ‘Wastewater’.  We have members working all over the world in this area, as well as researchers looking at new and innovative ways to treat wastewater to help benefit society.

Check out Chris’ thoughts below, and don’t forget to comment with your own views on the subject.

Name: Chris Short
Job: Consultant and Chartered Chemical Engineer
Company: Chris Short Water Quality (previously Yorkshire Water)
Special Interest Group: Water, Chair

I’m not going to claim that chemical engineers were behind all the advances in wastewater management in the past century, greatly improving public health and the environment within industrialised countries.

However, chemical engineers have been increasingly involved in wastewater treatment over the last 100 years.

Whether applied to industrial processes, human, or animal wastes, their skills are ideally suited to add value in this area.

Continue reading Guest Blog: How have chemical engineers advanced wastewater management? #WorldWaterDay

10 female engineers on how to #BeBoldForChange #IWD2017

Today is International Women’s Day.

Celebrating the achievements of women, and various successes in gender parity, it provides us with the perfect opportunity to shine a light on the important issue of diversity in our profession.

The percentage of female undergraduates studying chemical engineering in UK is just above 25%. It’s higher than any other engineering discipline, but there’s still more to be done.

The theme for International Women’s Day 2017 is #BeBoldForChange. To celebrate, our member-led diversity network has shared ten inspiring quotes from their popular ‘Women in Engineering’ webinar series on changing attitudes, highlighting how the engineers featured #BeBoldForChange in their careers.

These women (and one man!) are all at different stages of their fulfilling careers. Their words should inspire you to be #BeBoldForChange too.

Continue reading 10 female engineers on how to #BeBoldForChange #IWD2017