There's chemistry between YSU and oil refinery

By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- If Heather Klesch and Brittany Pahon seem preoccupied these days, it could be because the honor students are pondering a problem they're trying to solve for a West Virginia oil refinery.
Klesch, of Struthers, and Pahon, of Boardman, both senior chemical engineering students at Youngstown State University, are consultants for Ergon -- West Virginia, looking for ways to boost the efficiency of its crude oil refining process.
That's pretty heady stuff for two college seniors itching to add some real world experience to their r & eacute;sum & eacute;s.
Doug Price, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at YSU, said the university's new process modeling partnership with Ergon is a win-win for the school, the students and the company.
Benefits both
"It gives the students a chance to test their skills on real life problems. It's the best possible teaching tool," he said. "It helps the university to build a relationship with Ergon, for future projects and for hiring purposes."
As for Ergon, the company gets the brain power of two of YSU's brightest engineering students, and their services are free.
The relationship began last fall when Price took a group of YSU engineering students to the Ergon refinery in Newell, W.Va., for a field trip. Located across from East Liverpool on the Ohio River, Ergon processes crude oil to produce motor oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, oils, waxes and petroleum resin.
Price talked with company engineers then about forming a partnership with the university by recruiting students to work on a specific problem-solving task. Ergon officials were interested, so they put their heads together to find a suitable problem for the students to tackle.
It couldn't be anything secret. Students are expected to write about their research and publish their reports as part of a bachelor's thesis they're required to prepare under YSU's University Scholars Program.
And it had to be a long-term project. Any student participating in the partnership arrangement would likely be scheduling the research around regular classwork, homework, jobs and summer internships.
Here's the problem
Ergon engineers came up with a problem that fit the bill.
The first step in the refining process removes gasoline from the crude oil, said Andy McAuley, Ergon's technical service manager, and the plant's distillation tower allows too much gasoline to turn to vapor. That vapor is not wasted -- it's used to fuel refinery furnaces -- but reducing the vapors to suitable levels would earn Ergon $10,000 to $30,000 more a year on gasoline sales.
Ergon asked the students to evaluate the system and look for a way to stop the waste.
Klesch and Pahon began by creating a computer model of the Ergon refinery.
Once that model is complete they'll be able to experiment with various process changes and combinations in the model. It's a time-consuming process more suitable to the academic environment, McAuley said, and the students are more experienced than the refinery engineers in using the computer software for complex problem solving.
"We've worked on other mock problems before as part our training, but never anything this complicated," Klesch said. "It's an excellent opportunity to work on a real life problem."
Wraps up in February
The two seniors have until February to finish their research and to write and submit their theses. If they haven't found a solution, Price said, other engineering students will likely take over the project and continue their research.
"We'll put as much as we can into it, and if we find the answer it would be absolutely great," Pahon said. "But if not, the model will be here, so future thesis students can continue."
They began the project in the spring semester and will continue through the summer while both participate in full-time summer internships.
Pahon, 21, a Boardman High School graduate, will serve an internship in the research and development department at Parker Hannifin in Ravenna this summer. Besides working toward a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, she is also pursuing a master's degree in business administration.
Klesch, also 21 and a Struthers High School graduate, will be serving an internship with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency working on a storm-water inspection project. "I get to play in the mud," she joked. She is also working toward a bachelor's in chemical engineering and completed another internship last summer working for an environmental firm.
About Ergon
Ergon -- West Virginia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ergon Inc., a privately held corporation based in Jackson, Miss. Ergon bought the Newell, W.V., refinery from Pennzoil-Quaker State Co. in 1997 and set new capacity records in 2002, processing more than 6.3 million barrels of crude oil.
Plant manager Neil Stanton, also a YSU graduate with a degree in chemical engineering, said the facility employs about 180 and has invested more than $80 million in improvements over the past five years.
vinarsky@vindy.com