Thanks to the help of Jack Powell (past-UCL alumni and HEFA Feedstocks Digital BD Lead at Shell plc), the Ramsay Society invited Ben Taylor (Strategy Manager for the Energy Transition Implementation at Shell plc) to discuss with students the Powering Progress and Net-Zero Strategy developed by Shell, with the goal of reaching Net-Zero emissions across their energy portfolio by 2050. 

During this 1-hour open Q&A session, Computer Scientists, Mechanical Engineers, and Chemical Engineers, had the opportunity to discuss with Ben and Jack the challenges arising with the management of Scope 3 emissions, the means through which data analytics can be harnessed and employed towards optimising the energy transition, the importance of a nature-based business strategy (promoting carbon offsetting, alongside the growing importance of carbon credits and trading), and finally the growing trend towards sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) within the UK.

This talk harnessed extensive discussions on business strategy and the importance of engineering and data science for the successful implementation of the energy transition and the Shell Power Progress initiative.    

Perhaps the most unique annual event, which distinguishes Chemical Engineering from all other Engineering disciplines is the annual Frank Morton sports day. Held in-person at Newcastle University on Monday the 21st of February 2022, over 500 undergraduate Chemical Engineers from across 29 UK and Ireland universities participated during the 40th edition of the annual Frank Morton Sports Day.

Over 44 students from the UCL Chemical Engineering department attended this event, organised by the Ramsay Society.

The event provided students with the opportunity to spend three days exploring Newcastle upon Tyne, meeting Chemical Engineering students from across the UK and Ireland, and engaging with industry-specific career fairs.
The overall outcome of the trip was incredibly positive, with UCL students securing 1st place in Table Tennis, 2nd place in Football, and 3rd place in both Chess and Badminton.

This partially-subsidised trip was made possible through the generous funding of the UCL Chemical Engineering Department and our industrial sponsors at Shell. 

This video has been produced as a courtesy of Iman Ismaili, a third-year UCL Chemical Engineering Student.
@midnight.ripples 

We thank our guest speakers for the time and commitment they provided towards our wonderful Hackathon event!

Conrad Young – Entrepreneur, Sustainable Food Specialist, past UCL Anthropology alumni, and Managing Director at Food Forward Ltd, 

Stephanie Michelsen – BSc. In Biotechnology and MSc. in Engineering Biotechnology. Stephanie is the Co-Founder & CEO at Jellatech 

Shalima Sreenath – BEng and MEng Chemical Engineer with 7 years’ experience working as a Process Engineer within the Food Industry

Over the past two years, the Ramsay Society has developed and hosted the First Year Hackathon, a three-day departmental event, normally held between Friday the 24th of September through to Sunday the 26th of September, the days prior to the start of term and Induction Week.

This event brings together first-year Chemical Engineering students, providing an open-ended research question, with the objective of exposing students to pressing global challenges, providing participants with the opportunity to engage with industry leading chemical engineers, to build friendships within their cohort, and most importantly, to get a taste of Chemical Engineering, teamwork, and Engineering Design Projects, prior to commencing their academic journeys.

The event boasts extensive participation from industry judges, with previous iterations hosting guest judges and speakers from Beyond Meats, Jellatech, and Food Forward Ltd, all of whom are leading specialists within Chemical Engineering, finance, and biosciences. Our panel of judges also comprises leading academics, who assess and provide feedback to the team’s 5-minute elevator pitches.

During the pandemic year of 2020, our first iteration of the Hackathon had over 59 students engaging online, with a further 42 engaging in 2021. During the first edition of the Hackathon, the research question covered the broad scope of “overcoming the challenges facing fossil fuel alternatives”. During the Hackathon students analysed a diverse range of innovations from vanadium flow batteries and machine learning models for wind energy forecasting and optimisation, to Perovskites solar cells for electric vehicles, alongside the future of hydrogen supply-chain logistics within the United Kingdom. 

In light of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the rise of vegan diets, and our changing climate, our most recent 2021 Hackathon tackled the broad scope of “Overcoming the challenges facing food security”. During the Hackathon students learnt about elevator pitch elaboration; the industrial processes, scale-up, and chemical engineering behind vegan meets, and the success story behind Jellatech, a US-based vegan-gelatine start-up. Many proposals were brainstormed, these included circular-economy approaches to food packaging (BioBox), innovative recycling of packaging (Scrap2Wrap),  a new data network and integrated technology system to optimise plant-based diets (Plant Munch), and a innovative proposal of aquaponics, merging agriculture and fish farming initiatives.  

The first Ramsay careers and speed networking event included presentations from Air products, KBR, MWH Global and PM group. The event aimed to show the wide range of industries and career paths that are available to chemical engineering students today.

We started with short presentations from the companies which each covered an overview of what they do, what types of jobs they offer and what a typical role involves day-to-day. The presentations also gave a detailed insight into what internships they had to offer to the students as well as useful recruitment information.

Air products introduced us to global and large-scale company in gas industry. KBR also is global and large-scale company, however they focus on procurement, construction, petrochemical etc. MWH Group is slightly smaller scale compared with 2 companies mentioned before, but a leading company in water industry and also has various locations worldwide. PM Group is again much smaller scale than first 2 companies mentioned and covers areas such as Biopharma and Food and beverage etc.

This was followed by a question and answer session where students got an opportunity to talk to the presenters and network with company representatives. It was a great chance for students to speak directly to, and learn more about, a particular company.

All-in-all the event was successful, we received good feedback and students were pleased to have been introduced to new and exciting companies and career opportunities. Ramsay looks forward to hosting many more similar events in the future!

You can view the pictures from the careers event here.

Pipes, pumps and power stations! Our trip to EDF’s Dungeness B nuclear power station was a fantastic opportunity to see all that theory being put into practice. We were able to tour the power station and gain insight into the full cycle of generating electricity from nuclear fuel.

 Our first stop on the tour was to view the Radiological Controlled Area (RCA) - here we had the opportunity to view the two reactors and learn about the reactor types, maintenance procedures and employee radiation exposure levels . Usually, when one hears ‘nuclear reactor’ they imagine deadly radiation exposure and dramatic explosions. What we were struck by is the surprisingly low amount of radiation employees are exposed to (0.5% of the UK government’s maximum annual recommendation) and the strict nature that this is monitored in the plant compared to in hospitals.  It was interesting to see the non-chalant engineers dressed in just overalls walking over the nuclear reactors – a testament to the confidence they have for the safety of nuclear technology.

 Next stop was the turbine hall where the electricity is generated. Electricity generation from steam is a concept that everyone on the trip was familiar with having come across it in high school physics or during our first year Thermodynamics module. However, what was particularly impressive was the scale to which everything was on. In addition to this everything in the hall was hand designed without the aid of computers, which is inconceivable to think of now due to our reliance on computer aided process design.

 Finally we stopped at the cooling water pump house. Here we were able to see filtration of  cool water coming in from the sea to remove fish and muscles (much to the delight of some very large seagulls!) before viewing some very large pumps, which pump the cool seawater into the turbine hall. As a little addition to our tour we were taken to see the training control room (which looked exactly like what you can see in the Simpsons) where control room engineers are trained.

 Overall this was an invaluable insight into the nuclear industry and a great opportunity to see chemical engineering principles applied to real-world situations. If you are interested in more things nuclear stay tuned for our nuclear technologies panel discussing on ‘Breaking the Nuclear Cycle’ on February 6th 2015.

You can view the pictures from the trip here.

Thank you to all that attended the Ramsay Ice Breaker! We hope all the UCL Chemical Engineering Freshers that attended had a great time getting know each other and taking part in the activities we had planned; from people bingo to the scavenger hunt around uni! If you did not get a chance to join/sign up to the society, no worries! You can contact either committee member and fill out a short form - a lifetime membership costs just £20 (that's for the whole time you are a student with the UCL Chemical Engineering department). We'd also like to thank all Chemical Engineering students, from older years, who helped make the event successful. 

*UPDATE* 
Pictures are up from yet another successful cocktail party - check them out in our Gallery!