Orla O' Connor FMC Biopolymer

The Carragennan Production Process

I completed my 3^rd year Chemical Engineering work Experience at FMC Biopolymer, Little Island, Co. Cork. FMC is a multinational Corporation and the plant in Little Island deals in the specialty Chemicals business. It produces the excipient for many medicines therefore the product it sold to Pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Roche and G.S.K. It currently employs 100 people in the plant in Little Island. My work experience proved to give me a great insight into the work of a chemical engineer. I was involved in many areas of the plant including production, validation, equipment and Instrumentation, design and effluent treatment. I completed many different projects in these areas with the most interesting being a process flow diagram and mass balance of the entire plant. Other projects included monitoring pieces of production equipment for faults and errors, a water and steam balance and producing a calibration curve for a mass flow meter. Some of these projects were completed in a group, with another Chemical engineering student also on work experience in FMC, Kieran Walsh. During the Three months that I worked in FMC, I gained valuable experience from the other Chemical engineers and staff working there, they’re door was always open for questions and queries. I am currently completing my Final year Experimental and Research Project in FMC, the project is based on water recycling and reuse within the plant. This gives me another opportunity to gain more experience from FMC during the college year as I am working there on my project every Thursday and Friday until Christmas.