Engineering news
A team of engineering students from Sheffield University have won a trip to Trinidad and Tobago as part of BP's Ultimate Field Trip student competition.
Team Oxidane, made up of Arona Othusitse, Chiamaka Nnaedozie, and Wai Choon Liong, developed a mobile thermal distillation unit for shale gas sites that produces potable water from fracking wastewater.
The finals for the competition were held this week at the British Museum, where four teams of finalists presented their ideas to a panel of four judges from BP. 101 teams of three students entered the competition, which is held annually.
The oil and gas firm’s Ultimate Field Trip asks teams of students to develop a solution to a real world energy challenge. This year’s challenge was to develop a novel technical solution that reduces and / or reuses the water used in oil and gas production and processing.
Team Oxidane's “thermicrotm” process combines the use of a microbubble reactor to remove solids and humidification and dehumidification units to clean wastewater. The team said the process would be around half the current costs of wastewater disposal.
Other finalists included: a team from the University of Strathclyde, which developed a process that uses a new type of solar cell in a process that produces ammonia from water; a team from the University of Birmingham that used supercritical process technology to remove inorganic and organic compounds from wastewater, and a team from Imperial College London, which combined photobioreactors with microbial desalination to recycle wastewater.
Suzy Style, head of graduate resourcing in the UK for BP said: “All the candidates were passionate, extremely knowledgable and showed a brilliant technical understanding of the challenge. They went beyond their studies to develop their ideas.
"They've had contact with BP experts in a number of areas and have developed their experience at presenting. The competition supports their CV and improves their employability.”
BP recruits around 100 graduates from the UK and 1000 worldwide each year. Although participation in the competition is not a prerequiste for a graduate job in BP, Styles said the company has recruited students from the competition in previous years, which has run annually since 2010.
The Sheffield University engineering students will join winning teams from Angola, Canada and the US during the two week trip to Trinidad and Tobago, during which they will they visit a BP offshore platform and an onshore processing facility. They winners will also have leisure time to visit Tobago and the Pigeon Point Heritage Park. In addition, each winning team member will receive £500 worth of Amazon vouchers.
Chiamaka Nnaedozie from Team Oxidane, said:“It’s been an absolutely amazing experience. We got to meet a lot of wonderful people along the way and got to know BP through its employees. It really feels good to win because our hard work has paid off. I’d recommend the competition to anyone as it’s a great way for students to see life outside the lecture theatre.”
More information on careers in BP can be found at www.bp.com/careers.