Politicians have a reputation of making outrageous promises.

Or at least thats what

I thought when I was spending my winter vacations in my native country Pakistan.
Pakistan is country that is not particularly blessed in non-renewable energy sources
particularly natural gas and oil. So, when the political leadership suddenly
campaigned to produce natural gas from the poor quality coal reserves Pakistan
has, I was naturally apprehensive. But no less intrigued.
It turns out that for once the claims of these politicians were not so outrageous after
all. As I studied this matter further, I was led to chemical engineering and it was the
obvious choice for me after I completed my high school studies. At the moment Im
in my final year of BEng. in Chemical Engineering from National University of
Sciences and Technology and it has been a truly enriching experience for me. I have
especially enjoyed studying the real life applications of different technologies and
the theoretical concepts involved with the mechanics of modern day processes.
What was more fascinating was that I was able to apply this newly acquired
engineering knowledge to my initial interests in energy such as the production of
syngas. I was particularly interested in the upcoming research on the new
technologies that aim to make underground coal gasification more environmentally
friendly by applying the concept of carbon capture. The carbon dioxide in the
syngas can be compressed and stored underground or can be easily transported to
other operations such as enhancing oil recovery. Also the coal cavities underground
that have been gasified can be further used for carbon dioxide storage to decrease
carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. The syngas produced could potentially
end the electricity crises that grips Pakistan today and perhaps this gas could be
processed such as by the Fischer-Tropsch process to provide us with synthetic fuel to
further end our energy woes.
Now in my final year, I was lucky enough to come across a project that appealed to
me greatly as it was aligned with natural interests in energy but was also a novel
idea to be submitted for an undergraduate degree. My project basically involves a
case study on the catalytic naphtha reforming, using an appropriate lumping
scheme to make a steady state model through Aspen HYSYS and also convert it into
dynamic state. The project also involves the design of a soft sensor that will take in
the basic process parameters such as temperature, pressure, hygrogen to carbon
ratio, etc. and by using an artificial neural network (ANN) will produce an algorithm
that predicts the octane number of the gasoline produce by the reformer.
Designing the soft sensor, I admit is what excites me the most primarily because it
is a novel idea that I feel will be an essential part of instrumentation in the process
industries in the near future. Also by designing this sensor has allowed me learn
outside the realm of pure chemical engineering concepts. I have learned a good
deal of artificial intelligence particularly about designing ANN in MATLAB. And this
has really been an inspiration for me, for it has allowed me to understand how
different fields of research such as that of artificial intelligence can be used by
chemical engineers to solve some our most pressing problems which in my case are
the long delays due to off-line analysis to determine the research octane number
(RON) of gasoline.

During my bachelors degree, I have had a taste of professional environment as I

was selected for the summer internships in Engro Corporation to spend a month at
their fertilizer plant. And it was truly a remarkable experience for me for it allowed
me to learn so much about plant operations. I was assigned to design department of
the company and it helped me to really apply all the theoretical knowledge I had
learned and apply it to tasks I was given throughout my internship.

Though the thing that I most enjoyed about my internship was when I was told to
come up with a proposal to solve a utilities issue. I had a design an infrastructure to
transport excess steam from one of the plants that produced excess of and
transport it to the main operation plant. The main issue for that was since the steam
was at a very high pressure I had to size valves, design a de-superheater and draw
out the prospective network that would be used for the transportation. This was a
really enlightening process to work in an industry and design something considering
all of the application constraints along with obviously the how economically feasible
it is for it to be applicable. This experience was truly an exhilarating one and one
that proved to me that this is what I want to do with my career.
Personally, I feel that a Masters degree will strengthen my technical background
and will allow me to take up more challenging projects. The proudest moments of
my life came through the things I was challenged with and its something I have
proved to be good at. I know that McGill University will offer me exactly the
challenges that I look forward to. This course would not only an extremely relevant
qualification for my future plans but would allow me to discover a city as serene and
culturally diverse as Montreal. It would be an amazing opportunity to study at McGill
and I hope that you allow me that honor.