Anonymous Company
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Our company develops multicomponent additive packages that are sold to customers who incorporate these additive packages into petroleum-based products (lubricants or fuels). For our additive packages, there can be up to 20 different compounds, and current practice is to store the additive packages and petroleum-based products at different temperatures for an extended period of time (up to 12 weeks) to make sure they are stable before mixing.
Currently, the stability of the additive packages & petroleum-based products is judged by visual consistency (by the human eye to see formation of precipitate, color change, and phase separation) and by analytical methods (testing the acid/base number, etc.). The usual fail mode is formation of precipitate.
Our goal is to develop a new system or approach that will let us dramatically accelerate product development by cutting down the amount of time we currently need to wait before stability of additive packages and petroleum products is achieved.
Propose a solution that would allow us to reduce the period of time we must currently wait to achieve storage stability.
We are open to physical, analytical, and chemical methods. For example, it could be anywhere from an additive solution to monitor stability, to a predictive tool to help us anticipate when product stability will occur at both low temperatures (to measure component solubility) and high temperatures (to measure the effect of extended storage conditions).
Be sure to provide any research you use in forming your solution so we can see where your work is coming from.
Please note that we are NOT interested in responses concerning additive solutions that stabilize the product. We want to better predict product stabilization to reduce the 12 week waiting period and to establish or adopt best practices used in the industry.
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Submissions will be graded on the following criteria:
- Meets Deliverables
- Creativity
- Clarity
will receive $150 each
will receive $50 each
| $150.00 |
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Sri Krishna Velivela Cornell University | |
| $150.00 |
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Pablo Enrique University of Waterloo | |
| $150.00 |
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Jan Mees University of Utah | |
| $150.00 |
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Brad Hancock Brigham Young University | |
| $150.00 |
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mark menesses Boston University | |
| $50.00 |
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Gabriel Fishbein University of Maryland | |
| $50.00 |
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Oscar Wong University of Illinois | |
| $50.00 |
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Pedro M University of Providence | |
| $50.00 |
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James Pavur Oxford University | |
| $50.00 |
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Zachary Risher Texas A&M University |