A short course is being offered by the Processing Engineering R&D Center entitled, “Practical Short Course on Plant Operations and Process Engineering for Solvent Biofuel Facilities“. The Center is part of Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station and is taking place October 16-19, 2016 at Texas A&M University, located in College Station, Texas. As part of the course, students will have access to live demonstrations held at pilot plants where they will see processing equipment in action.
“This course will focus on the fundamentals of the infrastructure, equipment, and process engineering unit operations required for success in modern, efficient, agricultural processing facilities,” said course organizer Rich Clough. “This will be helpful to new personnel as well as veterans in the industry. These folks may work in crush plants, fuel ethanol or biodiesel plants, corn wet/dry milling, or sugar beet operations. The common thread is that everyone from this sector deals with electrical power, PLCs, steam distribution, heat exchange, separations, conveyance systems, logistics and so on. We are fortunate to have a loyal lineup of instructors who are industry experts each with a career’s-worth of knowledge and experience to teach our attendees.”
There are several goals of the course including enabling students to receive comprehensive training in plant operations as well as to learn about and receive hands-on training in process engineering. In addition, participants will learn about emerging extraction/solvent plant and biofuel technologies. The course is geared towards supervisors and processing personnel from extraction plants, refineries, fuel ethanol and biodiesel plants, and individuals from other ag processing facilities interested in learning more about plant operations and process engineering.
“Everyone enjoys the demos, even experienced processors,” added Clough. “It’s exciting because some of our participants are seeing some types of equipment for the first time, and even our seasoned operators often learn something new.”