TPU engineering students have figured out how to clean oil from sulfur

The real case

Earlier it was reported that Tomsk Polytechnic University TPU has become one of the 111 qualifying venues for the international Case-in championship, where students from leading technical universities in Russia and the CIS solve practical problems based on real-world production situations.

The qualifying stages are held in five areas: "geological exploration", "metallurgy", "oil and gas business", "electric power industry", as well as "petrochemistry", which has become a new field this year, it was at Tomsk Polytechnic University that competitions for other participating universities were launched. SIBUR is a strategic partner in this area.

According to the TPU press service, the best result in the new direction was shown by the Philosophical Stone team. It included students of the TPU School of Engineering of Natural Resources Alexander Krutey, Ilya Eftor, Daria Afanasyeva and Ksenia Baklashkina.

 

To solve this problem, the polytechnics got a case study of a production project for deep processing of by-products of oil and gas production in Western Siberia. Within its framework, the participants studied the largest oil and gas launch project in the modern history of Russia – Zapsibneftekhim in Tobolsk.

 

"We have proposed to install a new technological unit for the purification of raw materials in production from the sulfur contained in it and other variations of sulfur compounds. We consider it economically advantageous to build a second processing line at an azeotropic propane purification plant for methanol. This will ensure the alternating operation of the two lines and extend their service life without stopping for scheduled repairs."– the captain of the team told reporters Alexander Krutey.

The team also came up with the idea to use a short-cycle hydrogen adsorption unit, which is obtained after the stage of perolysis (thermal decomposition) of raw materials, to purify hydrogen from impurities. In the future, it can be sent to the polymer production stage. The students calculated that the construction of such conversion plants would create an economic benefit of several million rubles.

Artur Kovin, Chairman of the Petrochemistry jury, Chief expert of SIBUR LLC, said in an interview with RIA Tomsk that the project of the Philosopher's Stone team turned out to be the most developed.

"In general, it is noticeable from the teams that TPU teaches students well: the masters are deeply immersed (in the topic), study it in detail, and are fluent in terminology. There are many interesting and unexpected solutions that don't immediately come to mind. In principle, some of this can be applied in our production facilities. There were also solutions from the field of fiction, but this is also good – if a person can think outside the box, he will be able to find a solution in difficult situations." He said Kovin.

The top 400

The qualifying stages at TPU also took place in other areas.

According to the university's press service, the Geoznaika team, which included students Elena Vodina, Vlada Eremeeva, Natalia Sosnina and Daria Ponomarenko, became the first in the exploration direction.

In the metallurgy field, Elena Korotkova, Rasul Rasulzoda and Alexandra Solovyan from the Let's Go team became the best.

The 50 Shades of Oil team consisting of Alexey Korolev, Maxim Sukharev, Andrey Fenzel and Sergey Cherenev won the Oil and Gas business.

Mikhail Kondrashov, Daria Krivonogova, Karen Margaryan, and Dmitry Sleptsov from the Smart team became the first in the Electric Power industry.

The final of the championship will be held in Moscow on May 30-31, and 400 people, recognized as the best in the qualifying stages, will gather for it. As a result, the winners will have the opportunity to complete internships and internships in leading industry companies.