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Expert F. Expert has applied professional chemical engineering knowledge, skills, and experience in evaluating, developing, and selecting alternative chemical process technologies, and has contributed to process improvements developed from existing technologies. Recent technical work involved devising an economical method to separate a complex aqueous solvent system having a number of close boiling point azeotropes in the design of fractionation columns using his understanding of minor component trapping, which resulted in patents. A further enhancement using a membrane system to de-water light ends having a significant concentration of product before reprocessing increased yield by 10%.

Expert has evaluated a number of chemical manufacturing facilities and chemical processes, power cycles and power plant proposals for cost effective design, construction, operation, and maintenance. In the mid-1980s, he was project manager for several of the first offshore oil and gas production facilities that used stacked jackup drilling platforms for early production of minor plays, and he developed a comprehensive petroleum product distribution concept for Indonesia.

Expert recently developed a new acetonitrile recovery process from synthesis wastes, determined basic process economic feasibility, assembled and operated two pilot plants to demonstrate its economic efficacy, then developed a detailed conceptual technical and economic design basis for a $15 million grassroots solvents chemical plant using the concept.

As a project and business developer for several large engineering and construction contractors, Expert assisted manufacturing clients in evaluating their existing chemical plant design for process improvements prior to major expansions. By involving construction managers early in evaluating and estimating plant expansions (e.g., a fatty alcohols plant using high pressure hydrogen), he helped minimize the capital cost and building schedule by overseeing the incorporation of constructability into the engineering design and construction sequence using computer and plastic scale models without compromising worker safety or quality of workmanship.

Expert has lowered capital plant costs by assisting owners in evaluating their chemical plant layouts for optimal expansion and contractors in rearranging equipment layouts that decrease piping and favor erection sequencing coincident with equipment delivery and ease of construction (e.g., standard vendor equipment whenever possible, large vessels on outside of plot plan). One such rearrangement for a specialty chemical plant reduced costs by $3 million.

In completing and polishing numerous basic chemical process design packages, Expert prepared: detailed chemical process flow charts as well as material, energy, water, electrical and emission balances; efficient plant layouts; equipment lists and specifications for tanks and vessels, including trayed and packed continuous distillation columns, exchangers, heaters, pumps, motors, packaging and electrical equipment, and buildings; and detailed line lists, all of which were subsequently used to develop capital cost estimates and detailed operating cost/business accounting models.

Expert has experience in identifying and modeling minor components in separation processes, developing thermodynamics of mass transfer interactions from extensive literature searches, and using ChemTran and other models. He has used dynamic process simulators such as WinSim to accurately predict the separations and operational conditions of complicated fractionators that were subsequently confirmed in pilot plants and developed into chemical process flow charts.


As COO of a technology company, Expert helped conceive, then demonstrate in pilot studies and develop a new, commercial-scale separation process into an economic $15 million plant design for pharmaceutical and DNA grade acetonitrile, including detailed component material, energy, utility, and effluent balances; generic and proprietary equipment designs, specifications, and motor lists; detailed carbon and alloy steel line takeoff lists; equipment arrangements, plot plan, and traffic flows; instrument list and computer control system specifications; and detailed business accounting and financial models.As a business developer for a large engineering and construction contractor, he originated and implemented bold marketing plans for new chemical, environmental, and manufacturing market sectors that added 30% to sales revenues over the proceeding five years.As a business developer for a large engineering and construction contractor, Expert successfully assisted several project developers in obtaining non-recourse financing and in negotiating design/build contracts for a $78 million polypropylene plant; a $90 million hazardous waste incinerator, and an $85 million cogeneration plant.As a technical troubleshooter, he cured flooding, cycling, and slugging in a 35-stage packed distillation column by increasing tower pressure and, thereby, raising top temperature, and by recycling a small fraction of the overhead product back to feed, all to compensate for the non-ideal behavior of water and water-solvent azeotropes present in the system whose boiling points were between those of the light and heavy key components.