Introduction

My Summer 2014 Co-op term resided at the Fresno, Texas plant of Nalco Champion. Started in
West Texas 60 years ago as Champion Chemicals, Champion Technologies has become one of
the largest global oilfield production chemical companies. With plants in Texas all the way to
Brazil, Champion Technologies is located in the centers and frontiers of the oil & gas industry
across the globe. Following the acquisition of Permian MudService, Inc., the parent company of
Champion Technologies, by Ecolab, the company was integrated with the Nalco Energy Services
business producing Nalco Champion as we know it today.
Since its start in 1976 as a phosphonate production plant, the Fresno Plant has undergone major
expansions, ultimately growing into a site housing 12 reactors and 2 blenders. Located on 29
acres and employing 124 full time employees, the Fresno Plant is an around-the-clock site,
producing over 800 products with an average of 300 different products per year. With seven
stainless steel reactors and five glass lined reactors, the plant has the capability of manufacturing
7 different product families: oxyalkylation, high temperature resins, scale inhibitors, corrosion
inhibitors, gas treats/ H2S scavengers, asphaltene paraffin inhibitors, and oil/water based blends.
In instances where a final product requires an intermediate material, the plant is able to produce
the needed chemical, being capable to store and sell this intermediate as well as using it for the
final product. There are 500 raw materials found at the Fresno site with 40 bulk tanks to store
these materials. Ethylene Oxide and Propylene Oxide, two of the most hazardous chemicals
found on site, are held by the largest volume tanks. There are also 20 intermediate tanks. During
my co-op term I worked with the engineering group whose task is to identify and solve many of
the instrumental and conceptual problems faced by the operators out in the field of work. Much
more than a change in instrumentation, the work done by the engineers as well as all of those
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employed at the Fresno Plant has proven to be a crucial and defining step towards the
advancement of the site in terms of both finance and production.

Work Environment
At Nalco Champion, I was part of a diverse engineering team. My mentor, Jason Mertz, is a
certified Professional Engineer with a degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of
Texas at Austin. After receiving his B.S in Chemical Engineering, Jason worked for various
engineering companies before arriving at Nalco Champion 10 years ago, working as a project
manager since. Under his supervision, I have worked on two different projects to date.
During my initial weeks at Nalco Champion, I participated in the plant-required new hire
training sessions. In these meetings, various safety topics were covered by the plant trainer
Gerard Hauser. During training, Power Points detailing different hazards and how to asses safety
measures were shown, followed by a comprehension exam.
As part of the initial integration into the engineering team, I spend several days in the operations
control room, interacting with the board operators and getting to know their daily duties. During
these days I also learned much about the plant and about the products made. The operators, or
production technicians, have a wide variety of experience and education. From managing and
monitoring the board controls, to drumming out final product and labeling totes and drums, the
technicians at the Fresno site have various assignments while on duty, making them detrimental
to the success of production.

During the second week in July, all of the co-ops employed by Nalco Champion were given the
opportunity to visit the corporate headquarters of Ecolab, the parent company of Nalco
Champion. During the visit in St. Paul, Minnesota, the co-ops, including myself, were able to
interact with many professionals, some that worked for the company as interns and are now fully
employed and others that have ventured into the company as veteran and experienced engineers.
One of the key speakers to the co-op group was Doug Baker, the CEO of Ecolab. As part of the
trip, the interns and co-ops were invited to an Employee Resource Group breakfast, where
representatives from different resource groups gave an overview as to what activities and
benefits the groups partake in. I managed to talk with all of the groups, signing up to receive
updates and invitations to events. Even though the groups are not currently present in the Fresno
area, Ecolab has taken the initiative of starting local chapters of these groups to make sure they
are available to all employees.

Technical Summary
Objectives
The primary project I worked on was the creation of a process flow diagram around the air
pollution control devices in use at the plant. My mentor gave me the task of not only drawing out
the PFD but also integrating properties of the flows in to and out of the devices, making it a
material and energy balance. In this project, concepts learned from the courses Transport
Phenomena as well as Transport Processes helped me better understand the project and how it
pertains to the safety of everyone in the plant. The main objective of this project is to inform the
technicians and engineers of what different chemicals are being emitted from the reaction vessels
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and to where these chemicals go to. Since the last PFD on these devices was dated back to 2008,
this updated PFD incorporated various changes that technicians may have not been aware of.
Further insight of this PFD can be used to determine if any of these devices are expendable.
Description
At the Fresno Plant, there are four main air pollution control devices: a scrubber, a thermal
oxidizer, an oxide flare and a VOC flare. Emissions from the vessels go to their corresponding
device in accordance to the consistency of the emission. Although not assigned to one specific
control device, eight of the twelve reactors have their emissions fed into two different air
pollution control device.
The Fresno site is divided into four plants: Plants 1, 2, 3 and 4. Plant 1 involves the process of
acidic batches. Two of the reactors in Plant 1 go to a specified Plant 1 scrubber while the
remaining two reactors go to a preliminary scrubber, subsequently feed into the thermal oxidizer.
The Plant 1 scrubber was not part of the scope of work for this project. In Plant 2, all four
reactors either feed into the project-focused scrubber, Plant 2 scrubber, or into the oxide flare.
Both reactors in Plant 3 are emitted into either the oxide flare or the thermal oxidizer. Two
blenders located in Plant 3 are fed into the thermal oxidizer. In Plant 4, the two reactors are either
fed into the oxide flare or the thermal oxidizer. The oxide flare also receives emissions from the
Propylene Oxide and Ethylene Oxide storage tanks. The VOC flare serves as back-up to the
thermal oxidizer; if there is to be an issue with the thermal oxidizer all of the incoming flow
would be routed to the VOC flare.
Solutions

The project was initially stated to be a simple PFD to show where the respective emissions from
the reactors discharged to. After further discussion with my mentor, we further extended the
project into a mass and energy balance. After drawing out all of the flows from the reactors to
the air pollution control devices, I was to calculate chemical compositions of each stream along
with their energy and mass flow rates.
We first looked to see if solutions could be found through means of vapor-liquid equilibrium
calculations. After concluding that this would raise the level of difficulty of the project given to
novice engineer like myself, we tried to look for a different method of solution. As my mentor
attended various responsibilities that required his attention, I ventured out to look for ideas on
how to approach the project. From the production technicians, only the temperatures and mass
flow rates of the emission streams were obtained as the board controls do not show flow
compositions. After further consultation with one of the environmental engineers at the site,
Mesha Covington, I found and reviewed the sites Air Emission Inventory.
The Air Emission Inventory gives the annual throughput of the contaminants, in pounds per year,
fed into each air pollution control device from respective reactors. Summing all the contaminant
mass rates and dividing each by this total, the composition of the streams were calculated. From
streams that are mixed with air or that are known to be composed of mostly air, the calculated
compositions were standardized to take into account the known ratio of air to contaminant. These
ratios were established by my mentor, Jason Mertz.
The final calculations were added to the PFD which was then submitted for review from my
mentor. After minor adjustments were made in the instrumentation drawings and formatting, the
project was accepted as complete.

Conclusion
Overall, my first co-op experience at Nalco Champion has proven to be a welcoming to what is
to come after my graduation. As my first chemical engineering experience outside of the class
setting, my term at Nalco Champion has exposed me to concepts that not only have I seen in
class, but to those that I want to learn more about. Having a hands-on experience in the latter
years of my undergraduate career is beneficial in terms of determining what I would like to do
once I graduate. This term at Nalco Champion has helped me narrow my post-graduation options
towards a definitive one. Through the second term I hope to have greater opportunities and
responsibilities at the site. Knowing that Ive gotten past the learning obstacles that come with
the first job experience, I plan to be involved around the plant and increase my self-motivation to
ensure that I am an integral part of the team that makes Nalco Champion a great place.