past editions

Three Ten Initiative Technologies LLP (310i) (www.the310i.com) organized the Distillation Experts Conclave 2021 (DEC2021) from 3-6 August 2021, bringing together global distillation experts on a virtual platform. Each day of the four-day conclave was focused on one theme – safety and digitization, operations & debottlenecking, process intensification & debottlenecking, and advancement in separations.  

DEC 2021 is the second edition of the conclave that closely follows the first edition’s success in Mumbai in 2018.  DEC 2021 was sponsored by Tridiagonal Solutions, with Fractionation Research Inc. (FRI) as its supporting partner along with PTQ/Digital Refining as the official publication and Chemical Industry Digest as the media partner.  The conclave was well attended with over 450 attendees from various operating companies, EPCs, licensors, and technology providers. In all, there were 90 participating companies from 18 countries, with 42 of them being operating companies. Over 80% of the attendees belonged to major refining, chemical, and petrochemical companies, including Aarti Industries, ADNOC, Aggreko, Alkyl Amines, BORL, Chemplast Sanmar, BPCL, Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer, Chevron, CPCL, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, Gharda Chemicals, HMEL, HPCL, IOCL, KIPIC, KNPC, MRPL, Nayara Energy, NRL, OGDCL, OPAL, Petronas, Phillips66, RIL, SABIC, SASOL, Syngene, Thirumalai Chemicals, Total, TUPRAS, and Woodside Energy.  

The four-day virtual conclave had 12 expert sessions from Ingenero Technologies, HPCL, Kaypear Engineering, Fluor, TLV Corporation, BARC, DWC Innovations, RVT Process Equipment, RIL, BPCL, CSIR-IIP, and U. of Manchester. Each session had detailed presentations and interactive Q&A, with an over 320 questions from the attendees answered by the expert speakers. The next edition of the conclave will be conducted as a physical event (situations permitting) in August 2022.

The Distillation Experts Meeting 2018, was an event exclusive to industry attendees with the focus on bringing together the global process engineering expertise to India and provide a platform for engineering personnel to interact and gain from collective experience. Experts from FRI and other Indian and international companies including RIL, HPCL, IOCL, BPCL, CPCL, Sulzer, Raschig Gmbh, BARC, GTI Solutions, and CSIR-IIP presented on topics related to distillation safety, troubleshooting & debottlenecking, gamma scanning, control, and design to name a few. This was a one-of-its-kind event designed to provide engineers and scientists a chance to interact with the who’s who of the distillation world.  

This meeting offered insights into some rare topics which are generally never touched upon by commercial exhibition style events in India. Attendees of the meeting ended up having an increased awareness regarding various best practices followed globally. Some of the unique aspects of the meeting include–

• Detailed coverage of Gamma Scanning, Risk Analysis, Troubleshooting, Column Inspections and Safety, Extractive Distillation, CDU Revamps, Column Internals, and Distributors.
• Unique Q&A forum with an open-house discussion where problems faced by any of the attendees can be freely discussed and suggestions/comments offered by the entire forum.
• Insights into the working of the world’s largest distillation research consortium – FRI