LyondellBasell, San Jacinto College celebrate completion of Glass Distillation Lab
Employees from LyondellBasell and San Jacinto College, along with a small group of elected officials and community partners, gathered on Friday, March 5, for a [socially-distant] ribbon-cutting ceremony officially opening the new LyondellBasell Glass Distillation Lab at San Jacinto College.
The lab, located in the LyondellBasell Center for Petrochemical, Energy, & Technology (CPET) at San Jacinto College, is a scaled model distillation plant which shows the chemical and physical processes that take place within a chemical plant. It is designed to be a hands-on training tool for the next generation of operators, teaching process technology and instrumentation. San Jacinto College students will have a unique perspective on how a distillation unit operates, since the glass structure of the unit allows them to peek inside and see how it works.
“The LyondellBasell Glass Distillation Lab is an innovative educational tool which gives our future workforce hands-on experience before they step foot on a manufacturing site," said Michael VanDerSnick, Senior Vice President of Americas Manufacturing for LyondellBasell. “Our custom-built Glass Distillation Lab is the most realistic training experience a student can have without actually being at a plant, and it’s the only one of its kind. LyondellBasell employees are personally invested in the workforce of the future, which is evident in the 14,000 hours they dedicated to constructing the lab.”
The LyondellBasell Glass Distillation Lab is one of 35 labs at CPET, which opened for classes in Fall 2019. The Center is the largest training facility in the Gulf Coast Region built for and designed by industry. It also includes an 8,000-square-foot glycol distillation unit, 20 interactive classrooms, and conference, training, and assembly spaces designed to accommodate academic, community, and industrial functions. The LyondellBasell Center for Petrochemical, Energy, & Technology was funded in part through a $425 million bond referendum in 2015 and through numerous monetary and in-kind donations from industry partners.
“When we began the process of planning this building several years ago, it was important to have our industry partners at the table from the beginning,” said San Jacinto College Chancellor Dr. Brenda Hellyer. “We are fortunate to have LyondellBasell as one of our many partners, and today we are here to celebrate them and the opening of the Glass Distillation Lab. This lab is going to benefit the next generation of process technology workers by providing them with a real-life, hands-on experience, just as they will use when they enter the workforce. We are thankful and grateful to LyondellBasell for its commitment to our students and our training programs at San Jacinto College.”
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