Industrial Visit to HP Green R & D Centre

The Department of Chemical Engineering, MVJ College of Engineering, organised an Industrial Visit to HP Green R&D Centre, Bengaluru, on March 23^rd, 2019.

Participants

The Industrial Visit was undertaken by 27 students of 6^th Semester and 2 faculty members of the Department of Chemical Engineering.

About the HP Green R&D Centre 

HP Green R&D Centre is located in KIADB Industrial Area, Tarabanahalli, Devanagonthi Bengaluru. It is one of the vibrant Research Centres in India, known for carrying out research and development activities in the oil refining and alternate energy sectors. The Centre began research activities in 2012, in the areas of catalysis, fluid catalytic cracking, hydro processing, process intensification, residue up-gradation, crude and crude compatibility and alternative energies such as bio-fuels, solar energy etc. The Centre is recognized by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), and has collaborations with several research institutes in India and abroad. HP Green R&D Centre is focusing to leverage R&D and technological innovations to build globally competitive capabilities, and has demonstrated a number of products / technologies, through the HP Green R&D Centre, Bengaluru.

The Visit

The Industrial Visit was arranged for the students of the 6^th semester, on 23^rd March, 2019. We started at 8.00 am from the college, accompanied by 2 faculty members, Ms. Keerthi K Pai, AP, and Ms. Chaitra D, AP.

We reached HP Green R&D Centre at 9.00 am. An introductory session about the HP Green R&D Centre was given by Shri B Ramachandra Rao and Ms. Selvi. The session included general details about the institute and the technologies and products developed here, like HP DLA – a novel lubricity additive that has been developed to significantly improve the lubricity properties of ultra-low Sulphur Diesel.  HP-CORMIT is an indigenously developed corrosion inhibitor which was implemented in the Mangalore-Hassan-Mysore Solur LPG pipeline and reduced the corrosion rate to 0.5 mils per year. Phase I of HPGRDC has seven world-class labs – Hydro-processing, Catalysis, Bioprocesses, Crude Evaluation and Fuels Research, Analytical and Nano Technology.

After this introductory session, the students were divided into groups of two, and taken inside the three labs – Bio-process, Analytical and Hydrocracking labs – with engineers accompanying them.

In the Bioprocess lab, the students learnt about HP-BioActiva developed by HPGRDC – a unique bio-additive for use during the biological method in waste water treatment for removal of oil, phenolics etc. They were enlightened on HP-Bioremedia, a new microbial formulation consisting of newly isolated bacterial and fungal strains which were evaluated for crude and sludge hydrocarbon degradation. The students were also shown the high-pressure reactors and fermenters in the pilot plant, used for the production of the Bioethanol, Bioremedia and Bioactiva.

The Analytical facility has several sophisticated instruments like NMR, XPS, HPLC, GC, Powder X-ray Diffractometer, Raman Spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Ultra Violet-Visible Spectroscopy (UV-VIS), SEM, Fluorescence Spectrophotometer etc. The students had the good fortune to see all these instruments. In the Hydrocracking lab, a pilot plant to study petroleum processes such as Diesel Hydro-desulphurization, Diesel Hydrotreating, Naphtha Hydrotreating, Hydrocracking, Isomerization was shown to the students. A hydrocracking unit or hydrocracker takes gas oil, which is heavier and has a higher boiling range than distillate fuel oil, and cracks the heavy molecules into distillate and gasoline, in the presence of hydrogen and a catalyst. The hydrocracker upgrades low-quality heavy gas oils from the atmospheric or vacuum distillation tower, the fluid catalytic cracker, and the coking units, into high-quality diesel, and gasoline. These pilot plants help them to develop and test new technologies and new catalyst formulations, for better feed conversion.

Thus, through this Industrial Visit, the students were able to correlate and understand the practical applications of the processes they study in their curriculum.

After a satisfying morning, we left the HP Green R &D by 12.00 noon in the college bus, and returned to the college by 12.40 pm.

We express our heartfelt thanks to the Management, Principal, Vice-Principal, Head of Department and the Management of HP Green R & D, for permitting and arranging this Industrial Visit, and to the faculty members for accompanying us to the venue and being supportive. It was a great learning and exploring experience, and a highly educative one too.

Outcome of the Event

• Gain of practical knowledge on different petroleum processing technologies like Hydrocracking, Reforming, Naphtha Hydrotreatment and Bioprocessing of waste water and soil.
• Exposure to the practical working environment and Pilot Plants.
• Good opportunity for students to gain awareness about industrial practices and Safety.