By: Patty Summers
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UOP has one of the most experienced technical services groups in the world, and the Adsorbents Technical Services Team which supports the Separations Additives & Specialties business is no exception. This team has base locations in Houston and Antwerp, and has recently expanded to KL and Dubai. Even with the newly expanded team members, our team averages nearly 20 years of experience per member. Combining our people with deep adsorption process know-how and our field based analytical equipment we are able to offer our customers the highest quality technical consultation in the industry.
The roots of this team go back to the original Union Carbide group in Tarrytown New York who not only invented the first commercially synthetically produced molecular sieves, but also developed many of the water and contaminant removal applications that our customers have been practicing for over 50 years. As our product line expanded past molecular sieves into aluminas and non regenerative metal oxides, that tradition of deep application understanding has continued. Today, our team of adsorption experts is best in class offering technical consultation for our clients around the globe from natural gas processing plants, to refineries, to petrochemical plants, to air separation plants.
It is not uncommon, and in fact we prefer, to begin our involvement on a project before it is even built. In the early stages, our team is deeply involved with the determination of appropriate technical approach, adsorbent selection, quickly followed by design generation. As the project continues, our Adsorbent Technical Service team follows the project every step of the way, reviewing vessel diagrams, providing loading and start up assistance, and ultimately, optimization. Once up and running, this same team offers troubleshooting of operational issues if necessary.
While the before work is critical to the successful implementation of a project, keeping a hydrocarbon processing facility operating at peak condition takes ongoing effort. Our team makes frequent visits to the field in order to perform on site evaluations to measure and assess feed stream impurities and operating conditions, including adsorption and regeneration cycles. With this information we can help optimize the units, and assess adsorbent performance as it may impact maintenance and change out scheduling.
Our goal is to partner with our customers, know the specific adsorbent unit, and assist with operational upsets and unit optimization. This is our way to help improve our customers’ reliability and profitability.
