Clients |
Merichem and
PPG Industries |
 |
 |
Location |
Houston, TX and LaPorte, TX |
Projects |
Acid Gas Substitution, and
Aspartame Pre-Cursors Pilot Plant |
Duration |
1974 - 1980 |
Scope |
Process Design |
Role |
Process Engineer for Design Phases |
Tasks |
Merichem Cresylics Springing
-
Did process study on switching weak Lewis acid gas
used to "spring"
cresylics from H2S to CO2: driven by safety.
-
Gathered plant data onsite for development of
alternate PFD and material balance ,with switch from HS2S to CO2
-
Automated stoichiometric material balance flow-sheet
case study calculations in BASIC to include recycle streams.
Aspartame Precursors
- This pilot plant project was conducted in absolute secrecy: only
our boss know the actual names of the client, or the ingredients, or
the intermediate products! Because of the global competition, PPG
had split the production-scale pilot stages across several firms and
locations.
- We did a design using Component "A", "B" etc with all of the
reaction, physical, and transport properties provided. Only after
the plant was built did we learn that one of the precursor
ingredients was
phosgene (which did fully react: but the
debate
over
legalizing Aspartame did not vanish).
|