NEW YORK CITY — Chemical engineers, process safety professionals, and industry stakeholders across the chemical process industries (CPI) will survey the state of their profession when the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and its Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) present the 2023 AIChE Spring Meeting and 19th Global Congress on Process Safety (GCPS) — to be held March 12–16 at the George R. Brown Convention Center and Hilton Americas Hotel in Houston, Texas.
AIChE’s largest meeting for practicing chemical engineering and allied professional, the Spring Meeting showcases the breadth of today’s chemical engineering endeavors, from the fundamentals to new the latest developments, in a program incorporating nearly 200 technical sessions. Areas of focus include chemical engineers at the forefront of new and sustainable methods of manufacturing and energy production, as well as process safety developments in the chemical, petrochemical, and related industries.
The conference launches on Monday, March 13, with the AIChE Government and Industry Leaders (AGILE) Keynote lecture — to be presented by Michael J. Graff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Air Liquide Holdings, Inc., and Executive Vice President and Executive Committee Member of Air Liquide Group. Graff will underscore the conference’s overriding theme as he explains how the chemical engineering profession is inventing the future.
This emphasis on the future — and chemical engineering’s fulfillment of emerging societal and industrial needs — is elaborated at the meeting’s topical conferences.
The focus on new opportunities includes the debut of a topical conference devoted to the transition from traditional fuels to more-sustainable energy sources. Sustainability is a factor in many sessions, and found in topical conferences that chart progress in clean energy and industrial wastewater management. The emerging role of chemical engineers in resource-efficient advanced manufacturing techniques will be examined in several topical conferences, highlighting “Industry 4.0” concepts such as process intensification, digitization, artificial intelligence, and big-data analytics.
The 35th Ethylene Producers’ Conference will kicks-off on March 13 with a keynote talk by Sarah Marshall, Vice President for Sustainability at NOVA Chemicals. Additional topical conferences delve into gas utilization, distillation, refinery processing, hydrogen safety, plastics circularity, and professional-skills development — with addition sessions devoted to strengthen the profession by working toward a fully equitable and inclusive workforce.
Programming organized by AIChE’s Fuels and Petrochemicals Division will span topics from traditional fuel production to considerations of how the oil and gas industries are adapting to the changing landscape of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, decarbonization, and other timely subjects. The energy-focused programming begins on March 13 at a plenary co-hosted with the meeting’s Industry 4.0 topical conference. This plenary features a talk by Jens Schmidt , Chief Technology Officer at TES-H2 will discuss how digitalization is accelerating progress in the use of hydrogen as a CO2-neutral energy source.
Keynote luncheons explore some of the conference’s major themes. On March 13, David Yankovitz, Principal and Cross-Business U.S. Chemicals Market Leader at Deloitte Consulting LLP, will deliver perspectives on the sustainable use of materials. The guest speaker on March 14 is Gayle Schueller, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at 3M, who will describe how science, collaboration, and a sense of urgency can help organizations to achieve their environmental, societal, and governance (ESG) objectives. Then, on March 15, the conference welcomes luncheon speaker Rodney Reed, Assistant Chief of Operational
Support for the Harris County (TX) Fire Marshal’s Office, who will discuss emergency-response planning in his talk, “Each Disaster — Managed Together." Organized by AIChE’s Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), the Global Congress on Process Safety (GCPS) engages safety engineers, plant managers, and process design experts around the world in an ongoing exploration of technologies and strategies to ensure plant safety, manage risk, and strengthen process safety management (PSM) programs. The Global Congress builds upon CCPS’s vision for “a world without process safety incidents.”
The GCPS beings on March 13 with a plenary session and keynote by Chris Tagoe, Senior Vice President of Health, Safety, and Environment at LyondellBasell. His lecture is entitled “Shaping a Process Safety Culture with ‘The Power of Many’”
The GCPS incorporates the programming of the 57th Annual Loss Prevention Symposium, the 38th CCPS International Conference, the 25th Process Plant Safety Symposium, and the 12th Process Safety Management Mentoring Forum. The international emphasis of the meeting is underscored at sessions offering “Perspectives on Process Safety from Around the Globe.” Sessions devoted to “Case Histories and Lessons Learned” (March 16) will spotlight real-world incident investigations. Case studies include an examination of the Aqaba Bay (Jordan) chlorine incident, a catastrophic explosion investigation, gasoline storage tank lightning strikes, the 2021 Texas power outages, and other topics.
For a complete schedule of events and information about conference registration, visit www.aiche.org/spring.
Editor’s note: Journalists interested in covering the conference should contact Gordon Ellis at gorde@aiche.org.
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About AIChE: AIChE is a professional society of more than 60,000 members in more than 110 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society. Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontier of chemical engineering research in such areas as nanotechnology, sustainability, hydrogen fuels, biological and environmental engineering, and chemical plant safety and security. More information about AIChE is available at www.aiche.org.
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About the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS): CCPS is a not-for-profit corporate membership organization within AIChE, with over 200 members, that identifies and addresses process safety needs in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and petroleum industries. CCPS brings together manufacturers, government agencies, consultants, academics and insurers to lead the way in improving process safety. Members, working in project subcommittees, define and develop useful, time-tested guidelines that have practical applications that run the gamut from human factors to qualitative and quantitative risk analysis to security vulnerability to inherently safe design. With more than 100 publications, CCPS is at the forefront of efforts to improve process safety performance. Learn more about CCPS: www.aiche.org/ccps.
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