Ten teams awarded at the recent university student Olympiad ceremony hosted by LG Chem and the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers. The ceremony was held on a metaverse platform. [Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] An idea for a buried-type leak prevention wall that can efficiently respond to chemical leak accidents won the grand prize in a university student contest held by LG Chem and the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers.
According to LG Chem on the 22nd, a total of 1,692 chemical engineering major university students from 647 teams participated in the first Petrochemical Olympiad held over the past three months, proposing problems and solutions in areas such as safety, productivity, and environment. Expert judges from LG Chem's Global Production Center and the Institute evaluated the practicality and originality to select one grand prize team and one gold, silver, and bronze team in each category.
The grand prize was awarded to the team "Wigi Talchul Number One" consisting of Hongik University students Park Jung-hoon, Park Sang-young, and Eom Se-bin. The system proposed by this team operates by automatically raising a buried discharge wall when a chemical leak accident occurs, protecting the surroundings from dangers such as fire. The leaked raw materials are transferred into the empty space inside the wall. While existing discharge walls simply block leaked substances, the buried-type discharge wall immediately isolates the raw materials to minimize external exposure. The judging panel commented, "The proposed safety facility was realistically suggested considering various domestic and international safety management standards, with accurate and logical calculation design taken into account," and added, "It demonstrated potential for practical use in actual industrial sites."
Other awarded projects included process design for producing hydrogen fuel from by-product gas generated during the naphtha cracking process, optimization plans for NBR latex production, and a radio frequency identification system for monitoring mechanical defects in raw material storage tanks. The award ceremony was held on a metaverse platform. The grand prize team received 5 million KRW per person and internship opportunities. Other winners received prize money ranging from 1 million to 3 million KRW and benefits such as exemption from document screening. No Guk-rae, head of LG Chem's Petrochemical Business Division, stated, "We will continue to nurture innovative talents in the chemical engineering field."
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