Extending an Alliance of Innovation

Swanson School of Engineering

A novel collaboration between Pitt and an Ohio-based manufacturer is entering 10 years of risk and research—one that provides students with experience that goes beyond the typical lab setting. 

Since 2014, The Lubrizol Corporation has maintained a singular partnership with the Swanson School’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, providing funding that encourages entrepreneurship and risk-taking among faculty and students while helping Lubrizol to develop new initiatives that help to transform the additive and lubrication industry. 

According to Steven R. Little, Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, the alliance has leveraged advancements in manufacturing processes, external funding, and support for nearly 30 graduate and postdoctoral students. “Beyond funding, Lubrizol has shared its engineers as instructors and mentors, so not only are we developing new ideas and processes, we’re also graduating the next generation of chemical engineers,” he says.

Research has ranged from dispersant and lubricant production and batch reactor design to 3-D printed filter membranes and computational modeling to create novel catalysts.

Glenn Cormack, Lubrizol’s global processes innovation manager, has been involved with the relationship since its inception. “The alliance has fundamentally changed how Lubrizol develops new processes,” he says. 

Götz Veser, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, notes that a five-year U.S. Department of Energy commitment boosted projects to improve energy efficiency and lower investment requirements for American manufacturers seeking to upgrade processes. Lubrizol and Pitt were able to develop prototypes and later install two new, modular processing units at global Lubrizol production sites that are drastically more energy- and cost-efficient as well as safer and smaller than conventional processes.

“For the American chemical industry, bigger has always been better, but competitors in Europe and elsewhere found that process intensification—making more with less—is key to innovation and growth in the 21st century,” Veser explains.