Vetting: To vet
was originally a horse-racing term, referring to the requirement that a horse
be checked for health and soundness by a veterinarian before being allowed to
race. Thus, it has taken the general meaning "to check". It is a
figurative contraction of veterinarian, which originated in the mid-17th
century.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetting
Once a year, MIT Technology Review (https://www.technologyreview.com/)
publishes a list of young innovators they call "35 Under 35." (https://www.technologyreview.com/innovators-under-35/2020/) The 2020 list has just
arrived. You should read it. A few of the innovators are affiliated with MIT.
Most are not. Many of the innovations described may not fit your objectives.
But while some of the innovations may seem to be, at first glance, interesting
but not pertinent, they might merit a second glance.
For example, let's assume that your interest is in identifying emerging
technology that pertains to the petroleum and/or chemical industry.
Here is one that might catch your eye …
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Miguel Modestino
Age: 34 / Affiliation: NYU / Country of birth: Venezuela
He is reducing the chemical industry’s carbon footprint
by using AI to optimize reactions with electricity instead of heat.
Miguel Modestino has cleared a major hurdle in electrifying the chemical
industry, which produces compounds used in everything from plastics to
fertilizer. His AI-based system teaches itself how to optimize the reactions
for making various chemicals by zapping them with pulses of electricity instead
of the conventional approach of heating them, which typically involves burning
fossil fuels. And since electricity can come from renewable sources like wind
or solar, electrifying chemical plants could greatly reduce emissions.
In an early lab project, Modestino’s team achieved more than a 30% boost in the
production rate of adiponitrile (which is used in making nylon, among numerous
other industrial processes)—a greater improvement than any other method has
shown in the last 50 years.
The key was using complex pulses of electrical current at constantly varying
rates to optimize yields. Figuring out what patterns of pulses to use required
machine learning. Modestino ran a few experiments making adiponitrile under
different electrical conditions and then let his AI analyze the data to figure
out how to make the compound with less energy, better yields, and less waste.
Modestino and two former students recently founded Sunthetics to apply the AI
system to other chemical processes, like those involved in generating hydrogen fuel
and making polymers. The company is also working to scale up the adiponitrile
process for a full pilot reactor and to extend the approach to other processes.
source: https://www.technologyreview.com/innovator/miguel-modestino/
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Another innovation that may be less obviously related to the petroleum/chemical
industry has to do with desalination. That’s
because countries like Saudi Arabia, an oil super-major, depend on desalination
to produce potable water for its expanding population. Beyond that, Saudi
Aramco oil processing requires massive amounts of desalinated sea water. So
while the innovation focuses on providing drinking water, could it be applied
to the needs of industry? Worth considering.
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David Warsinger
Age: 32 / Affiliation: Purdue University / Country of birth: US
His system could alleviate the drawbacks of existing
desalination plants.
David Warsinger thinks he’s found an innovation that could help combat
one of the 21st century’s great environmental challenges: water shortages
around the globe.
His fix is an improved form of reverse osmosis—the most common method of
desalination. Today, an estimated 5% of the world’s population relies on
desalinated water, drawn from the ocean or brackish inland sources, to meet at
least some daily needs. This figure will continue to rise as aquifers are
further squeezed by pollution, overuse, and shifting rainfall patterns linked
to climate change. According to the United Nations, some 3.6 billion people
live in areas that experience water scarcity at least one month of the year—and
that number is likely to exceed five billion by 2050. “Globally, we are truly
tapping out our water resources,” Warsinger says.
“Globally, we are truly tapping out
our water resources.”
Yet desalination today has major limitations. Traditional reverse osmosis, in
which pressurized water is forced through a salt-removing membrane, uses a lot
of energy and is costly. It also leaves behind a large part of the water as
brine—an especially big problem for inland plants, where source water is
scarcer.
Warsinger’s system, which he developed with Emily Tow while they were both at
MIT, is known as batch reverse osmosis, and it is designed to make the process
more efficient. The technique allows desalination to occur in batches, with
salinity and pressure varying over time. Whereas traditional reverse osmosis
systems apply constant pressure, the batch system is engineered to apply less
pressure to water that’s less salty, saving a considerable amount of energy. It
also increases the rate of fresh water extraction by minimizing the build-up of
salt on the membranes.
Warsinger’s lab at Purdue, where he’s now a professor of mechanical
engineering, has since worked to refine the batch design. His team has
developed a trailer-sized prototype it hopes to use for pilot plants in Peru
and Kenya.
source: https://www.technologyreview.com/innovator/david-warsinger/
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Disaster preparedness is another area that may not seem to be particularly
pertinent to your industry. Ghena Alhanaee begs to differ.
///////
Ghena Alhanaee
Age: 30 / Affiliation: University of Southern California / Country of birth:
United Arab Emirates
Heavy dependence on infrastructure like oil rigs,
nuclear reactors, and desalination plants can be catastrophic in a crisis. Her
data-driven framework could help nations prepare.
Early on in her days as a doctoral student at the University of Southern
California, Ghena Alhanaee stumbled upon a disturbing set of facts. The
countries of the Persian Gulf, including her native United Arab Emirates, were
far more vulnerable to disaster than she’d realized. Not only was the Gulf
itself one of the world’s largest oil and gas production zones, with more than
800 offshore platforms and thousands of tankers passing through its shallow
waters every year, but the UAE was also building the Arab Peninsula’s first
nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, several Gulf countries relied almost
exclusively on desalinated Gulf water for drinking, with emergency supplies for
just two or three days. “If something were to happen, and desalination plants
weren’t able to operate, right now there really is no backup plan,” Alhanaee
says.
Ever since, she has devoted her energy to tackling the Gulf’s disaster
preparedness gap. She’s developing a data-driven framework to help the region
better mitigate the risks of an oil spill or nuclear accident. Since the Gulf’s
nuclear industry is nascent, and its oil and gas sector keeps its data private,
she’s relying on information from the US: her statistical model draws on data
from more than 4,000 reported safety incidents in the US nuclear and offshore
oil industries over the past decade. The trick, she says, is to better
understand which combinations of small incidents, under which scenarios, are
most likely to snowball into something major.
Alhanaee’s framework seeks to do just that. She plans to apply her findings to
a particularly vulnerable spot in the Gulf—in the vicinity of the Barakah
nuclear power plant, which is nearing completion, and large-scale oil and
desalination installations. Ultimately, she hopes her research will help the
region’s governments develop more robust, and better coordinated, disaster mitigation
strategies.
source: https://www.technologyreview.com/innovator/ghena-alhanaee/
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You will find other innovations in the MIT list that, with a little
imagination, can be applied to your industry. As always, when you find a
technology of interest, you should vet the technology, the innovator, and any
associated companies.
Still, the fact that it has been identified by MIT Technology Review as a
promising technology means it may be worth the time to perform due diligence.
///////
Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian,
Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean
Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he
performed for Aramco.
Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/ for continuing tips on effective online
research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com with questions on research, training, or
anything else
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