Lock Yew wins PSE Process Design Award

Lock Yew, graduating Year 4 MEng student, was this year’s winner of the PSE Process Design Award, awarded to the best performing student on the project.

The MEng design students were asked to work in teams in the design and simulation of a process for the production of styrene, and then to individually design one of the units. Lock modelled and designed a distillation column for the separation of styrene and divinylbenzene (DVB).

She implemented in gPROMS a dynamic model of the column including mass and energy balance as well as non-ideal VLE behaviour using Multiflash. She studied the effect of design on column performance in gPROMS, analysing the dynamic behaviour and response to disturbances of the unit, analysed the economic performance of the design and she finally optimised the unit operation. She also compared the gPROMS steady state simulation results with the results obtained from Aspen simulation.

The award was presented by PSE’s Costas Pantelides (Managing Director) and Mark Mazopoulos (Marketing Director and Deputy MD).