A few months ago I asked readers to share their thoughts about Chemical Processing's content via our “What are your comments?” feature (located at the bottom of articles and news items). I'm happy to report we are starting to gain momentum.
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As promised in my May column (Content Reply Feature: Set Us Straight), we named our first two winners in our comment contest. Each month we choose a comment at random. The author of the comment is awarded a $25 American Express gift card. The more you comment, the more chances you have to win. And to sweeten the deal, we are going to give away a $100 American Express gift card at the end of the year to the comment our editorial staff deems most thoughtful.
The winner for July was Frank Fox, who chose to donate his winnings to charity.
Fox offered his thoughts regarding a recent Process Puzzler: Restore Reboiler Reliability. "I agree, I think there may be a design issue the material seems like it doesn't seem to have a large enough capacity for the recycle or bottoms. In Light Hydrocarbons Plant we had a tower for C4+, and polymer can be a game killer. The bottom was level controlled to a product drum through several pass thru a large tube bundle exchanger, we would run on one until it fouled, then swap. The exchangers could foul with polymer granules that looked very similar to ground cork. The flow would make it through a final cooling loop to the product drum, it was another plants feed stock. The inlet to the smaller exchangers would foul. They had what we called a witches hat strainer, that we could isolate the exchanger and back flush the pass. To get rid of the granules, however when it was bad, you seldom could get 10 to 15 minutes flow before doing it again.
His comments continued on various other issues. You can see the full thread by going to the article.
Our winner for August, Than Nguyen, offered a short and sweet response to the article Move Against Static Electricity. "From experience, improper grounding is a major cause of all accidents involving static electricity. Education is key in preventing these preventable accidents."
In addition to the comments feature, our Ask the Experts forum is generating an increasing number of responses from readers. Our Mixing forum (www.chemicalprocessing.com/experts/mixing) has numerous posts featuring a little back-and-forth banter on mixing processes and equipment. One easy way to tell if there's a conversation going on is to look at the number of posts. If there are more than two, that means one of your fellow readers has weighed in on the thread. (The first post is the question and the second post is the expert answer.)
The folks who post to the forums are also in the running for the $25 American Express gift card. So if you have an opinion, an idea, a challenge or a better way of doing things, let us know. Your comments could help someone else – and they could earn you a few extra bucks.
OTHER COOL STUFF
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