Sean Moran's Blog, page 21

A Week to Go!

Only a week to go until the release of my new book " An Applied Guide to Water and Effluent Treatment Plant Design"! I should have some discounted copies on my ebay page, where there are already copies of my other books. I have recently started shipping worldwide from ebay.

Detailed Design Water and Effluent Treatment Plant Process Plant Design Expert

I've been doing the real nitty gritty detailed design of a commercial effluent treatment system this week, treating a highly variable cocktail of heavy metals and recalcitrant organics.

I've more or less got it all bottomed out now, in anticipation of the Environment Agency's new consent to discharge at the site.

Only a week to go to the release of my new #icheme book " An Applied Guide to Water and Effluent Treatment Plant Design".

I'm hoping it does as well as the last two. This is my most detailed yet, dealing as it does with my area of maximum expertise.

#sean #moran #icheme #book #water #effluent #process #plant #design

Expert Witness Water Process Engineer

I had another expert witness enquiry this week, to do with a reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant. Water and effluent treatment is my sector of process engineering. The design, commissioning and troubleshooting of clean or dirty water treatment plants is what I spend most of my time as a professional engineer doing, and is also what most of my expert witness engagement are about.

#expert #witness #water #process #sean #moran #chemical #engineer 

Expert Witness Troubleshooter Industrial Effluent Treatment Process Engineer

A mixed bag this week of expert witness enquiries and real design work, all for industrial effluent treatment plants.

It looks like I have finally bottomed out the commercial waste treatment plant design and associated negotiation with the environment  agency. I also had an enquiry from a startup company who thought before we talked that reverse osmosis could turn high strength industrial waste into deionised water as a single stage treatment. It can't. 

Other than that, a bit of writing, and a bit of follow-up with my students, trying to help them get that all important first job.  
#expert #witness #water #engineer #chemical #process #sean #moran #blog

Expert Witness Water Engineer Water Treatment Plant Design, Construction, Installation Commissioning Setting to Work Performance Testing Operation and Troubleshooting

I'm starting the week with an expert witness enquiry, in my usual field (water treatment plant design, construction and operation) with all of the usual elements.

Is it a bad specification, a bad contract, a bad contractor, a bad client or a bad design? Is it a bad plant or is it a good plant badly operated? Or is it some combination of some of these factors?

#waterengineer #expert #witness #process #design #chemical #engineer #seanmoran

Sean Moran Chemical Engineer Former IChemE Council Member Voice of Chemical Engineering Blogger Text Book Author

I am a chemical engineer. Most people don't know what that is, (including many people who call themselves chemical engineers). Chemical Engineers design and operate process plants. Process plants mostly make stuff (rather than widgets). That stuff might be clean water, drugs, plastic, chocolate or petrol, (and so on). In summary, we make the stuff which underpins civilisation.

My specialisation is clean water. This is the blog on which I discuss my professional practice in water and environmental engineering. I however have a number of other roles, and a number of other blogs in which I discuss those. I can see from google search that people look for my blogs, so I thought Id write a post which brings them together to allow you to choose.

So, I tend to discuss the books I write on linkedin, or my goodreads and amazon blogs, though they do get a mention here sometimes. I write blog posts for my main publisher Elsevier under the byline "The Voice of Chemical Engineering", which you can see here. My Elsevier books are IChemE (Institution of Chemical Engineers) branded, though I left the IChemE earlier this year, and moved to CIWEM, as I was unhappy with the way the #IChemE treat their members.

I discuss my teaching on Linked in and this also tends to form the basis of much that I do on facebook, as I use facebook in my teaching.

#seanmoran  #icheme #council  #resignation #blog #chemicalengineer #engineer #blogger #author #professor

Industrial Effluent : Knowing What You Don't Know and How Much You Should Care

I still work as an engineer, even though a lot of the things I write on here are about my side-lines as a part-time academic and author. Earlier this week I had a discussion with a chemical engineer in a different sector which reminded me of the difference between academic and professional rigour, and between taking and dodging professional responsibility.

Without giving away too many details, it concerned the zoning of a confined space in an industrial effluent treatment collection system. Apparently the American NFPA 820 standard states that sewer gas is non-flammable. On the strength of this statement, an engineer thought that the confined space presented no risk of explosion hazard.

There are a number of standards in play in a case like this, though I have not seen an American standard used in this context the UK before. IEC 60079, BS EN 50281 and BS EN 60079 part 10 are the more commonly used guidance. The key word here is guidance. Codes and standards are not to be applied blindly. Professional engineers are employed to exercise professional judgement. Applying an inappropriate standard, or applying an appropriate one inappropriately is less than competent.

Thinking that reference to a standard gets us out of thinking about whether its recommendation is sensible is an abdication of professional responsibility. Not considering whether the question we are being asked falls outside our area of expertise is also a failing of professionalism. Luckily, someone on the team knows me, and knew that this falls in my area of expertise. I already knew that the idea that "sewer gas is non-flammable" was not universally true. I am confined space trained, and we wear gas monitors with (amongst other things) LEL detection when accessing chambers such as this. It also transpired upon investigation that this was not what I would call normal sewer contents, as it was mostly hot, high strength trade effluent rather than domestic sewage. Organic solvents are handled at the site, and it was uncertain as to whether there were any routes by which these solvents, or their heavier than air vapours could make it to the sump in question.

At this point I knew enough to say that there were grounds to have some concern about whether flammable atmospheres might occur in the sump, and to rule out the idea that this was an inconceivable condition. If I were looking to milk the client, I might have insisted that only a rigorous program of sampling and analysis could tell us how the chamber should be regarded, but I applied some common sense. What were the financial implications of making the conservative assumption, (zoning it as likely to contain an explosive atmosphere), compared with the costs of the investigation?

It turned out that there was no plan to put electrical equipment in the sump, so the zoning was a paper exercise. A study to "rigorously" establish the "proper" zoning would have been a waste of money. We are not scientists. Our investigations are intended to increase safety and robustness, or decrease cost. Sometimes the answer to an engineering question is "who cares"? Not that I'm immune to caring about things no-one else does myself. I'm an engineer too...

#seanmoran #chemicalengineer #realchemeng #engineering #industrialeffluent

Process Engineering Training From Sean Moran Chemical Engineer

There are still a lot of training enquiries coming in from the Middle East. Few firm bookings as yet, but I've got plenty to be getting on with.

I've just finished my draft of the much expanded second edition of "An Applied Guide to Process and Plant Design", part of my series of #icheme books and I'm coming to the end of my module on water treatment engineering at Manchester University, so there will be coursework and exams to mark soon.

What we don't have a lot of at the moment is expert witness work, but summer is usually the busy time for that. Don't ask me why, but that's how it is...

#icheme #seanmoran #chemicalengineer #processplantdesign #training

Chemical Engineering Training UK and Middle East With Sean Moran

There are lots of enquiries about training coming in now, though I don't expect to be actually delivering anything in the Middle East before Ramadan, I've got a couple of things booked in the UK at the end of June.

It's a mixed bag of subjects, but generally it's all about either design or operation of process plants, which is how I define chemical engineering (and how it used to be defined by the #IChemE back when I became a Chartered Chemical Engineer).

#sean.moran #blog #icheme #chartered #chemicalengineer #training #processplantdesign #processplantoperation 

Process Plant Design and Layout Training with Sean Moran

I delivered some training in the UK this week, unusually. Mostly I train in the Gulf. I did a short session on process plant layout for a design house in the North of England. More generally, training is finally looking up.

I'm presently booking a week long course on design of desalination plant to be delivered in the UK for an overseas client, and a couple of courses in South East Asia on water treatment plant design.

Almost finished my university lecturing for the year, the Chester course got exceptional feedback. Ill have to arrange feedback for the Manchester course when I am back next week.

#seanmoran #chemicalengineer #training #processplantdesign #processplantlayout