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ChemEbytes Index Editorial 03 A Unit Operations Guide for the 04 Chemical Engineering Layman Ladies and Legends 07 Chemistry and Chemical 09 Engineering Book Review: The Alchemy of Air 11 Catalysts: Current Research and 15 Future Developments 02 Editorial It gives me great pleasure to congratulate students, teachers, and staff of the Chemical Engineering depart- ment for the newsletter’s first publication. The news- letter is believed to be a focus of the inside activities, i.e. academics, students and faculty achievement, and innovation occurring in the department. In the era of engineering and technology, this newsletter will moti- vate the teachers and students to share their creativity and new ideas with the world and help in their overall development. As society’s demands are rising day by day & hence the production has to increase, the time has come for all chemical engineers to come forward and join their hands to serve this society and country better. I wish best of luck for all the team members for DR. P. KALAICHELVI publication of the newsletter. HEAD OF DEPARTMENT It gives me immense pleasure to congratulate stu- dents, teachers, and staff of the Chemical Engineering department for the newsletter’s first publication. The newsletter is believed to be a focus of the inside activi- ties namely academics, achievements by the students and faculty, and incredible innovations occurring in the department. We believe that keeping track of all the alterations will definitely have a positive influence to constantly improve than the previous year. In the era of engineering and technology, where the need of the hour is hands-on talent, this newsletter will moti- vate the teachers and students to share their new and creative thoughts with the world and also to harness these developments. It’s a well-known fact that chem- SURYA B J ical engineers design and troubleshoot processes for EX-COM production of chemicals, fuels, pharmaceuticals and biologicals. As society’s demands are rising day by day & hence the production has to increase, it’s showtime for all chemical engineers to come forward and join their hands to serve this society and the nation better. I hope all our efforts yield a positive outcome. I wish best of luck for all the team members for publication of the newsletter. 03 A UNIT OPERATIONS GUIDE FOR THE CHEMICAL ENGINEERING LAYMAN Distillation, evaporation, filtration, absorp- aren’t familiar with them, you’re going to tion, extraction, crushing, leaching, dry- be looked at as if you are a fighter jet pi- ing.... lot without a license. A ‘Unit Operation’ is There seems to be no end to this list but nothing but a ‘step’ in a process. A step as it’s never a bad idea to get your feet wet in something that gets you closer to your with this vast ocean that is ‘Unit Processes’ goal. In our day-to-day life, that could be before it’s too late, especially if you aspire to something as simple as commuting to col- become successful in chemical engineer- lege, or as complex as solving differential ing and related fields. equations for hours. Specific to chemical engineering industries, it could be as sim- You had probably encountered the term ple as heating something in order to re- ‘Unit Operations’ during your first ever move water, adding water to dilute a mix- domain-specific lecture. That means this ture or as complex as separating several really is something that’s going to stick components from a mixture using metic- with you for the rest of your chemical en- ulously designed equipment. During every gineering future, which in turn means they unit operation, we have only one objective- are of serious importance to the chemical to move closer to obtaining the end prod- engineer. They are so common that if you uct. “A Chemical Industry - where Unit Operations rule!” 04 Now that we are clear with what unit op- more detail as to how and when this is erations are, we are ready to jump into the being applied in a chemical industry. Ba- details. Let us look at something familiar. sically, we reduce the size of the material If we have ever prepared a cup of tea (not below a specified value. A crushing cham- using teabags, of course), we have proba- ber is of prime importance in an industry bly used a strainer to ‘filter’ the tea. That is that deals with ores or rocks as raw mate- one unit operation in itself and is one of the rials. Ores and rocks cannot be processed most frequently used ones in any chemical as they come and hence they need to be industry. We, of course, do not prepare tea of uniform size for subsequent unit oper- in an industry, but we use ‘filtration’ to fil- ations (not ‘steps’). Some typical examples ter solids from a mixture of solids + liquids where this is put into use is the cement in- (known as slurry). We encounter slurries in dustry, where limestone is the major raw numerous industries and it is almost always material. Limestone arrives at the industry important to separate the solid and liquid directly from quarries and it is crushed to a components. We are often interested in ei- powdery form before cement manufactur- ther the solid or the liquid part but rarely ing takes place. One more example is the both components of the slurry and filtering manufacture of sugar from sugarcane. Ex- is the elementary step (by now, you should tracting the juice from sugarcane is once be using the term ‘unit operation’ and not again the first step in the manufacture of ‘step’) in such scenarios. To quote some spe- sugar and crushers do the trick once again. cific examples, we use filtration to remove As you might be able to deduce, crushing contaminants from bottled water. Also, often occurs in the preliminary stages of a specialised filters are required for custom- full-fledged process- the stages involving ized processes. There’s definitely a lot more raw materials. to filtering, but that is left for you to explore. Let’s look at something that’s reserved to industries now, something more complex to carry out than tea straining but at the same time, simple in principle. Industries often deal with chemical reactions and they end up with a mixture which contains more than one component- say acetone and water. The instinctive next step in all industries would be to separate acetone and water (or whatever the components of the mixture were). While filtration was done when one component was a solid, we have liquid components now. We make use of a basic physical property that differ- ent components boil at different tempera- tures (at a given pressure for the omnipres- ent perfectionists). All of us are aware that water boils at 373K and we can recall our chemistry teacher from school reiterating the fact that acetone boils at a lower tem- perature than water. In essence, acetone “Vacuum Filters - One of the most commonly will boil at a temperature when water will used filters” still be a liquid! So, we collect this acetone and condense it to complete the distilla- Up next is something that is as self-explan- tion process. This is not only for 2 compo- atory as things can get. We are going to nents, but can be extended to many com- discuss ‘crushing’. Since you already know ponents, provided there’s an appreciable what it means, we shall try to go into a bit difference in the boiling points of materials. 05 “A crushing chamber is of prime im- portance in an industry that deals with ores or rocks as raw Crushing Chamber - from Rock to Powder materials.” Image Source: rocktechnology.sandvik.com This is applied in the petroleum industry where we have to separate the many dif- ferent constituents of crude oil. Crude oil contains methane, ethane, propane, some butane (and some other branched hydro- carbons). We employ fractional distillation (in plain words, distillation with many out- lets) to separate these components. Such cases often require precise monitoring of conditions and are in general expensive. These are three important (you guessed it, all of them are important) unit operations. With the advancement in technology, the areas of application are widening and new sophisticated instruments are being developed everyday in order to increase the efficiency of unit operations. Through changing times, the goal shall ever remain constant- ‘Improved processes, an im- proved lifestyle and an improved environ- ment.’ Distillation Column Image Source: wikipedia.org Article written by Pranav Sridhar K 06 LADIES AND LEGENDS “Chemical engineering? No way! That People believe that men are usually better branch is for boys. You can’t work in those at science concepts than women. That’s risky industries. Choose some other branch not the case. It is true that men continue with easier placement chances.” to dominate in various areas of engineer- ing even till date. On the contrary, there “Look at Sharma uncle’s daughter, she’s a are some potential female engineers who CSE graduate and now is happily settled proved their worth in their profession. If you without any tensions. You are not choos- also believe that women do not get enough ing chemical engineering and that’s final.” grades in this field, you’re living in the past era! “Women are good at soft skills while “Why do you want to perform experiments men are good at technical stuff” is not the with your future. You’re a girl and working trend now. Engineers need both and dedi- in those day/night shifts at the industries is cated women can get equally good at both. not safe! Drop your choice.” Parents also fear that success in this field is challenging, that women can’t reach to the This is the regular drama at a girl student’s top positions during their work span. Wake home when she just declares her choice to up people! There’s a long list of girl bosses graduate under a challenging branch like around the world! Chemical Engineering. This trend contin- Let’s have a look! ues forever and ever. Well, one of the rea- sons for parents to freak out when such a bold decision is made by their daughter is the lack of knowledge of how successful women are in the same path. 07 PADMASREE WARRIOR Starting from a bachelor’s degree at IIT Delhi and master’s degree at Cornell University in Chemical En- gineering, Padmasree Warrior is an Indian- American businesswoman and technology executive who was the CEO of NIO USA, an electric car maker. She was listed as one of the 100 most powerful women and America’s top 50 women in Tech by Forbes. RAMA GOVINDARAJAN Rama Govindarajan did her undergraduate degree from IIT Delhi and her master’s degree from Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA in the field of Chemical engineering. She is an Indian scientist specialized in the field of Fluid Dynamics and presently is working as a professor at ICST, Bengaluru. Prof. Govindarajan is a recipient of the Shanti SwarupBhatnagar Award for the year 2007. SARA AKBAR Sara Akbar, CEO and co-founder of Kuwait Energy is a Chemical Engineer with a BSc from Kuwait Univer- sity.Initially she was a petroleum engineer in Kuwait Oil Company in 1991 and moved up to several posi- tions before joining KUFPEC as Business Develop- ment Manager in 1999. In 2005, Sara co-established Kuwait Energy. She was also awarded the Charles F. Rand Memorial Gold Medal in 2013 for her incredible achievements in the oil industry. Other awards in- clude 2009’s Leader in Energy, recognizing her as the leading woman in the Middle East’s oil and gas indus- try. 08 There are many other women who suc- Kudos to all those bright and strong girls ceeded with flying colors in this field. who fought their way and chose Chemical Though this department has its own tough Engineering despite all second thoughts road, sheer will and perseverance is the posed by parents, relatives and other neg- mantra of success. We always see women ative forces. Remember, compromising their interests due to family pressure or other safety issues. Role mod- els like Warrior, Govindarajan and Sara give a ray of hope amidst these fears. Their suc- cess is an inspiration to the others. Article written by Shreya 09 10 11 BOOK REVIEW “THE ALCHEMY OF AIR: A JEWISH GENIUS, A DOOMED TYCOON, AND THE SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY THAT FED THE WORLD BUT FUELED THE RISE OF HITLER” BY THOMAS HAGER Priyadharsan M 12 Thomas Hager’s “The Alchemy of Air” is a brilliant, fast paced account of the discovery of the Haber- Bosch process and the two men who developed it, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. In the words of the Author himself, “This is the story of two men who invented a way to turn air into bread, built factories the size of small cities, made enormous fortunes, helped engineer the deaths of millions of people, and saved the lives of billions more” In 1898, Sir William Crookes, in his first ever speech as the President of the British Academy of Sciences, warned the civilised world of a “deadly peril”. That deadly peril was mass starvation. The ever-growing population was on its way to soon overtake the global food supply The farmers at that time depended on Chilean nitrate (sodium nitrate) that was mined in large quantities from the Atacama Desert. But it was a natural source that would eventually be exhausted. The solution, CARL BOSCH (1874 - 1940) Sir Crookes believed, was to find a way to fix at- By Nobel Foundation - http://nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1931/ mospheric nitrogen. To find a way to synthesize bosch-bio.html nitrogen fertilizer from the air. The Author starts the story by briefly covering the history of fertilizer and later, the harvesting of bird guano and the mining of Chilean nitrate in detail. He then takes us through the events of the 19th century surrounding nitrate production. The wars, the politics, and the bloom of the ni- trate industry. We are then brought back to the main plot. Fritz Haber finally developed a method to turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia in the lab- oratory. But that, as the author points out, was not an easy task. Haber had to overcome many technical difficulties and worked with levels of temperature and pressure unheard of at the time. But his experiment was conducted in a ta- bletop machine. The real problem was to scale it up to make it work on an industrial level. BASF, the chemical firm with whom Haber had signed a deal, assigned Carl Bosch, their young engineer, to do the impossible. Carl Bosch, along with his team of highly skilled scientists and engineers, succeeded in developing an industrial process FRITZ HABER (1868 - 1934) that is now known as Haber-Bosch process. He By The Nobel Foundation - http://nobel- set up the first plant in Oppau, Germany in 1913 prize.org/chemistry/laureates/1918/index. html which was functioning with its full capacity by 1914. But all of this is just one part of the story. 13 Haber-Bosch process launched their careers as leaders in their respective fields. Haber became Germany’s lead- ing chemist, a world-renowned scientist, and the head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Bosch went on to become the head of BASF, a leading industrialist, and a pioneer in high pressure chemistry. Both won a Nobel for their con- tributions, Haber in 1919 and Bosch in 1931. They also made choices that they would later regret in their life. Haber developed chlorine gas which was used against the Allies’ troops in World War – I and is now regarded as “SOMETHING the father of chemical warfare. He was also a super patriot THAT ASTOUNDS and converted from Judaism to Christianity to become a “true” German. He was left without a country when Hitler THE READER IS rose to power. Bosch had his Haber-Bosch plant produce THE SHEER SCALE sodium nitrate, which was used in explosives, to help Ger- many in World War – I. The war would have ended much OF THE IMPACT sooner without Haber-Bosch. He also helped found and OF THE HABER- headed IG Farben. the company which fuelled Hitler’s mad dreams. He realised, later in his life, the impact of his BOSCH PROCESS. life’s works and lost his will to live. THE HABER- The Author finishes the book by touching upon the cur- BOSCH PLANTS rent day implications of the Haber-Bosch process and its TODAY CONSUME impact, both good and bad, on the world. He also warns us about the environmental impacts of the process, of which ABOUT 1 PERCENT very little is known. Something that astounds the reader is OF THE WORLD’S the sheer scale of the impact of the Haber-Bosch process. The Haber-Bosch plants today consume about 1 percent TOTAL ENERGY of the world’s total energy production. And about half of PRODUCTION. AND the nitrogen in our body comes from Haber-Bosch plants. ABOUT HALF OF Thomas Hager skilfully takes us through this complex, THE NITROGEN IN eventful story while providing historical context for each event and offering incredible insights into the minds of OUR BODY COMES these master scientists. At first glance, Alchemy of Air FROM HABER- might seem like a book written for a scientifically inclined audience, but the author uses as little technical terms as BOSCH PLANTS.” possible and the story reads more like a fast-paced adven- ture. The Author also builds an interesting portrait of Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch and their meteoric rise and tragic ends. In 2011, the readers of The Chemical Engineer (tce) magazine voted Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch the most in- fluential chemical engineers of all time. The Alchemy of Air provides every argument for why that is true. Haber- Bosch process may have helped feed billions of people, but it was also responsible for the deaths of millions. The story of Haber-Bosch is a good example of the two-sidedness of human ingenuity. Overall, the book is highly engaging and hard to put down. It is also very thought-provoking with regard to scientific advancement and its unintended consequences. 14 FIRST AMMONIA REACTOR FROM BASF DURING ASSEMBLY AT THE OPPAU FACTORY (1913) By © BASF; BASF-Negativnummer 1795-alt, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/ index.php?curid=74097272 15 16 17 18 Article written by Suyash P 19 DESIGN CREDITS NAVEEN RASIKA SHYAM SANDEEP YAMINI COVER PICTURE FROM WWW.UNSPLASH.COM