The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) will hold its 2014 Spring Meeting and 10th Global Congress on Process Safety (GCPS) at the Hilton New Orleans – Riverside from March 30 to April 3, 2014. The meeting, consisting of 150 sessions across eight topical conferences and special program tracks, explores topics essential to practicing engineers, with a focus on energy and safety developments. More than 2,400 practitioners from 50 countries are expected to attend.
The Spring Meeting and GCPS will begin on the morning of March 31, with an opening keynote address by William F. Banholzer, retired chief technology officer of the Dow Chemical Co. Banholzer’s presentation is titled “Possible vs. Practical: Engineers Must Lead the Development of Practical Technologies.”
Later that morning, the Process Development Div.'s Plenary Session will feature a roster of presenters. John Dowdle, senior engineer at Dow Chemical, will begin the session with his talk, “Improving the Speed and Representation of Physical Properties Regression.” Then, Joseph Powell, chief scientist at Shell, will discuss shale gas and the history of C1 chemistry. Jack Hipple, an AIChE director and principal at TRIZ and Engineering Training Services LLC, will address the use of patterns of inventions found in the patent literature to predict disruptions in the patenting process. Michio Higashijima, technology sales manager at Mitsubishi Chemical, will conclude the session with a discussion of the company’s advanced technology for on-purpose butadiene production.
For 2014, a new topical conference will be devoted to the techniques and design challenges involved in the extraction and handling of Shale Gas and Tight Oil, including water treatment and conservation. On April 1, a panel of industry experts will discuss process safety considerations and the challenges involved in safe extraction, transport and processing of shale resources.
Also on Tuesday, Ramon Gonzalez, program director at the U.S. Advanced Research Project Agency for Energy, will give a keynote address as part of a conference on Emerging Technologies in Clean Energy in the 21stCentury. Gonzalez will discuss industrial biotechnology, highlighting bioconversion and bioelectrosynthesis techniques for the production of liquid fuels.
At the 14th Topical Conference on Gas Utilization, attendees will learn the latest techniques in gas conversion, gas separation and gasification, and discuss unconventional oil and gas resources. As part of this conference, Harri Kytomaa, corporate vice president at Exponent, will deliver a luncheon address on April 2.
This year marks the tenth annual Global Congress on Process Safety, the world’s largest gathering of process safety professionals. Organized by AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and the Safety and Health Division, the GCPS invites participants to join an ongoing dialogue devoted to exploring new ways to avoid incidents, manage risk, ensure plant safety and strengthen process-safety-management (PSM) programs.
The GCPS will also feature luncheon speakers: Bea Ponnudurai, head of the Group Health, Safety and Environment Division of Petronas (South Africa) on Monday, March 31; Luke Kisssam, chief executive officer at Albemarle on Tuesday, April 1; and Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Wednesday, April 2.
Other highlights of the conference include the Loss Prevention Symposium, CCPS International Conference, Ethylene Producers’ Conference, Topical Conference on Refinery Processing, Process Plant Safety Symposium, Topical Conference on Gas Utilization, Process Safety Management, Manufacturing in the 21st Century Conference, International Conference on Upstream Engineering and Flow Assurance, and Advances in Sustainability.Source: American Institute of Chemical Engineers
