Tuning a controller
Wax melting tank
Heat exchanger installation
Chemical plant, Java
Tuning the feed heater on SN2's high-performance plant
SN2 Pty Ltd is a chemical and process engineering consultancy with wide experience, both theoretical and practical. Principal consultant Dr Wayne A. Davies, started the business in 1988 as an honorary academic within the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney during which time he combined part-time teaching with his own research and consulting interests. These include: oil and gas refining, biodiesel, waste recycling, cryogenics, heat exchanger design, equipment innovations, plant troubleshooting and biological processes. SN2, formed in 2004, is now a general chemical engineering consultancy with research and development of high-performance processes as one of its several activities that include: biofuels including biodiesel, ethanol and "P-series" fuels (such as methyl tetrahydrofuran made from biomass), high temperature liquid phase waste conversion (oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis etc.).
Chemical Process Design: Where appropriate, SN2 prefers continuous processes over batch processes:
Laboratory-scale Research Plant: SN2 uses its own in-house continuous computer-controlled plant as a test bed for developing new processes. The simple but remarkably flexible plant takes in feed mixtures via a high-pressure pump, raises the stream temperature via an "economiser" heat exchanger, adjusts the temperature with an electric heater then make the transformation in the main 500cc reactor, often over a catalyst, then returns heat via the economiser to release the evolved product. The reactor can be filled with any catalyst as required.
The plant can operate at any temperature from ambient to 400 deg. C and at pressures up to 375 bar and with a flowrate of 4 litres/hour. It has been used routinely to operate under supercritical (SC) conditions with methanol for making SC biodiesel. It can also operate with supercritical water.
Design and construction of pilot plant: We have experience in the design and construction of plants from lab scale to full scale, the major examples being: a 100 tonne-per-day wax-emulsion plant designed in Sydney for a company in Hong Kong, a heat-recovery plant for water management, a cryogenic vapour scrubbing plant. See more on our experience in plants built.
Research: We do contract research for clients using our high performance plant above. We have well established links to the School of Chemistry and to the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney.