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Sellafield Ltd celebrate success at the IChemE awards for innovation and excellence
Shortlisted in four categories at the recent IChemE awards for innovation and excellence, Sellafield Ltd won two categories and had a further two submissions Highly Commended.
The two categories won by Sellafield Ltd were:
• the Health and Safety Award for the "Observation Process – Cultural Change, Behavioural Safety and Engineering Learning.” This award recognised our exemplary performance in developing and committing to cultural change in behavioural safety and learning from the Peer to Peer Observation process.
Highly Commended in the same category was the nuclear risk reduction effected by the chemical engineering used to underpin the safety of the B41 RAP design.
• the Core Chemical Engineering Award, for the development of fluidic mixers for the processing of intractable sludge in Sludge Packaging Plant 1.
The Technical Specialist Trainee Scheme was Highly Commended in the Education and Training category.
Dawn James, Engineering Director said: “This is a fantastic achievement, one that I am very proud of and one that everybody within Sellafield Ltd should also be proud of. When you look at the other contenders for awards, Invensys, Shell, BP and UOP, to name but a few, it shows just what a truly great accomplishment it is to receive these awards from such a prestigious professional body at this international event. I was also delighted to see the nuclear industry further recognised with the National Nuclear Laboratory being awarded the Chemical Engineering Project of the Year award, an award sponsored by Sellafield Ltd.”
The IChemE awards recognise and reward chemical engineering innovation and excellence. Now in their 18th year, the IChemE awards celebrate both individual and team achievement and are recognised and highly regarded throughout the international chemical, process and biochemical engineering community.
IChemE Chief Executive David Brown said: “Winning an IChemE award is a real achievement. Our awards are globally recognised and attract entries from all over the world. To be deemed the best in a particular area of chemical engineering like this is something worth celebrating and in past years, has proven to be the launch pad to even greater successes.”
The Health and safety award recognises the organisation that has best shown exemplary performance in developing technology to identify, assess, manage and control risks or that has collaborated most effectively with government, industry or society to build a common understanding of risk.
The Core chemical engineering award recognises the project or process that best demonstrates a chemical engineering solution to improve resource efficiency, lifetime value and/or process optimisation.
Sellafield Ltd’s Sludge & Slurry Working Group, the project facing focus of the Centre of Expertise draws on knowledge from internal specialists, from the technical and engineering directorates, the University of Leeds and the world renowned experts within the BHR group. The award recognizes the contribution to chemical engineering from a truly cross discipline team that realized the great potential of collaborative working with the supply chain. The work will play a key role in describing the behaviour of the sludge wastes that have arisen after years of operation at Sellafield and other nuclear sites across the UK. This information will help nuclear engineers work out how to dispose of the sludge safely and efficiently.
Professor Simon Biggs, Director of the School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering, said: "Liquid and semi-solid radioactive waste is a major headache. Having worked closely with the nuclear industry for over a decade, we have built up considerable knowledge of these sludges and how they behave. We are optimistic that we can help Sellafield Ltd clean up this waste from legacy facilities."
