Distillation author and guru Henry Kister taught a “Practical Distillation Technology” seminar at Lamar University this week.
Experienced engineers from across Southeast Texas attended the intensive, three day program. Attendees learned about the basic control and operation of a distillation column, how to troubleshoot a distillation column and how to determine what might cause poor performance. Kister also discussed evaluating existing column performance, developing new column designs and common problems with distillation columns.
“I came to the conference because Henry Kister has written some of the most prominent, commonly used books in our industry,” said Robert Tomasso of Texas Petrochemical. “The seminar is very comprehensive, detail oriented and I will be able to utilize what I have learned.”
Kister has more than 30 years experience in troubleshooting, revamping, field consulting, designing, controlling and starting up distillation processes and equipment. In addition to authoring three textbooks, he has more than 80 published articles to his credit and has taught the “Practical Distillation Technology” course more than 300 times. In addition to the custom program manual, conference- goers received complimentary copies of Kister's books, “Distillation Operation” and “Distillation Troubleshooting.”
He received Chemical Engineering Magazine’s 2002 award for personal achievement in chemical engineering, AIChE's 2003 Gerhold Award for outstanding contributions to chemical separation technology and the AIChE South Texas Chemical Engineering Practice Achievement Award 2005. Kister earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The seminar was sponsored by the Lamar University Division of Continuing and Distance Education and the Golden Triangle/Lamar University Engineering Partnership.
For more information, contact Lamar University Continuing Education at (409) 880-2233.
