The control room gives the visitor a first sight of this impressive facility and on entering you might be forgiven for thinking that you were at the heart of a large industrial plant rather than at a central London university campus. Apart from its evident use as a research facility for carbon capture technology, it provides students with hands-on experience of pilot-scale industrial plant operations. Indeed, Imperial is believed to be the only academic institution in the world to offer its undergraduates a teaching experience that so readily equips them with the practical skills they will need for a career in industry.
In return for its investment and technical input, ABB will have access to the carbon capture pilot plant for some of its own activities, including customer demonstrations and training, staff learning, such as inter-divisional training, hands on experience for its apprentices, product testing and software evaluation. ABB's UK Oil, Gas and Petrochemical sector general manager, Martin Grady, takes up the story:
“The pilot plant is a global showcase for the latest and best process control and instrumentation technology in use at one of the world’s leading engineering institutions. We will be able to trial new technology in a low risk, well-managed environment to gather beta site test data. It also gives ABB a great platform to train its staff and customers on a real pilot plant. Quite simply, there are very few industrial companies that have utilised all the leading-edge technology that Imperial College is featuring within this pilot plant.”
The company is also providing four summer placements of eight to ten weeks per annum at its UK operations. In addition, a summer placement in Brisbane, Australia will be awarded to a student on the university’s exchange programme, after spending their third undergraduate year in Australia. One final year student will be selected from previous summer students to have their final year tuition fees paid by ABB. Martin Grady again:
“By investing in the pilot plant and the awards, we are effectively investing in our own future, by making sure that ABB will have ready access to a stream of bright young engineers. One of our biggest problems is finding enough suitably qualified engineers to fill the ever growing range of opportunities we can offer. Obviously if engineering in the UK flourishes, then we flourish too.
“The move by ABB is partly in response to government initiatives aimed at rebuilding the manufacturing base of the UK and re-establishing the important contribution that engineering makes to people’s everyday lives. The UK needs to increase its base of skilled engineers if it is to grow its manufacturing sector towards its potential. We believe that the pilot plant will support education by giving tomorrow’s engineers hands-on exposure to real-life technology. This pilot plant really brings the real world into the classroom for the first time.
“The increasingly global nature of the projects we are working on, particularly in the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors, means that engineers from the UK and elsewhere are being called on to work in many different regions worldwide. Our aim is to use the plant to create a lasting association between the real-life problems that students will encounter once they qualify and the technology and capabilities available from ABB that can help solve them.”
Pilot plant project director, Daryl Williams believes the facility has catapulted Imperial into a position where it can offer practical, hands-on chemical engineering education and training on an international scale. “We were looking for a global control and instrumentation partner to work with us on the carbon capture pilot plant,” says Dr Williams. “The opportunity for both parties was immense. It provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to influence the training and education of thousands of young chemical engineers over the next 20 years at one of the world’s premier chemical engineering departments.”
The pilot scale carbon capture plant was originally designed by Strata Technology and built by Tecno Project Industriale (Italy). It was installed and commissioned in conjunction with JMS and Charter Tech, and commissioned in February 2012. It has the capacity to capture 50kg of CO2 per hour. As well as the pilot plant, other new facilities established at the department include a major undergraduate laboratory for bench-top experiments and a dedicated teaching laboratory for fine chemicals.
Working with several UK partners, ABB supplied a range of equipment to the project, including instrumentation such as flow meters, level control equipment, pressure and temperature transmitters, positioners, paperless data recorders and analysers, plus variable-speed drives, motors and, of course, the 800XA distributed control system. These are all connected via modern industrial communication buses, including Foundation Fieldbus, Profibus DP and PA and wireless HART. A key feature of the control room is the extended operator workplace (EOW) - a bespoke design, exclusive to ABB, offering a truly futuristic operator interface.
Among the many technologies ’on trial’ at the site is energy harvesting for wireless based instrumentation, a technique that utilises vibration or heat energy from surrounding plant to power instruments without having to worry about supplying external power to them or monitoring the condition of batteries. This approach is particularly suitable for brown field sites where additional process parameters may be required but retrofitting using conventionally powered instruments would be disruptive and expensive.
The ultimate goal
As a means of enabling students to test various scenarios for capturing carbon dioxide from an industrial process, the facility is playing a vital role, both in teaching new skills and positioning the UK at the forefront of environmental technology. With atmospheric carbon dioxide having increased by 35 percent since the industrial revolution, new ways must be found to reduce levels to prevent further environmental damage, and Imperial is now set to play its part.