As the 2026 AIChE Spring Meeting approaches, the Fuels and Petrochemicals Division (F&PD) is preparing a robust slate of technical programming. Among this year’s highlights is the Heat Exchangers Topical Conference, which will be the largest in its history.
We spoke with Francesco Coletti, who leads the Heat Exchangers Topical Conference, about the division’s role at the Spring Meeting, what’s driving the conference’s significant growth, and what attendees can expect from this year’s sessions.
The Fuels and Petrochemicals Division supports a large portion of the 2026 Spring Meeting programming. From your perspective, why does F&PD play such an important role for chemical engineers attending the meeting?
The Fuels and Petrochemicals Division sits at the intersection where chemical engineering fundamentals meet real industrial impact. Many of the sectors we represent—refining, petrochemicals, and increasingly low-carbon processes—account for a significant share of global energy and materials production, both essential to modern society and human well-being. As these industries face pressure to decarbonize, improve efficiency, and remain competitive, chemical engineers are central to delivering solutions. F&PD programming reflects this reality by focusing on practical challenges, emerging technologies, and system-level thinking, making it highly relevant to both practicing engineers and researchers at the Spring Meeting.
You’re leading the Heat Exchangers program, which is the largest it’s ever been. What do you think contributed to that growth, and what does it say about what chemical engineers are focused on right now?
The growth of the Heat Exchangers program isn’t accidental. It reflects a renewed recognition of how critical thermal systems are to efficiency, profitability, and decarbonization. Heat exchangers sit at the heart of most process industries, and small improvements in their design, operation, or maintenance translate into significant economic and environmental benefits. We’re also seeing increased interest driven by electrification, waste heat recovery, fouling mitigation, and digital tools like digital twins and predictive maintenance. The program’s size shows that chemical engineers are increasingly focused on extracting more value from existing assets while preparing for a lower-carbon future.
When you look at this year’s Heat Exchangers program, what themes or challenges do you think will resonate most with chemical engineers working in design, operations, and maintenance?
Several themes in this year’s Heat Exchangers program resonate strongly across design, operations, and maintenance. Heat transfer enhancement is a major focus from a design perspective, as engineers look for ways to improve thermal effectiveness and compactness. In operations, it’s increasingly viewed as a lever to boost throughput and efficiency—provided its impact on pressure drop is well understood.
Heat exchanger cleaning technologies speak directly to operations and maintenance teams. There’s growing recognition that cleaning strategies can be planned and optimized to minimize energy penalties, reduce unplanned downtime, and extend run lengths, rather than treating cleaning as a purely reactive activity.
Fouling mitigation cuts across all three areas, informing design choices and material selection, guiding operational practices to slow performance degradation, and reducing maintenance frequency and cost over the equipment lifecycle.
Finally, electrification introduces a broader system-level challenge. It requires design engineers to rethink thermal integration and heat exchanger specifications, while operations and maintenance teams adapt to new modes of safety management, heat delivery, and control.
What can attendees expect to take away from the Heat Exchangers Topical Conference and the broader F&PD programming at this year’s Spring Meeting?
The Heat Exchangers Topical Conference offers deep technical insight that engineers can apply directly to their own systems, while the broader F&PD programming provides context on how these technologies fit into evolving energy and petrochemical landscapes. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of current best practices, emerging tools, and how chemical engineering expertise continues to be essential in improving performance, reliability, and sustainability throughout the industry.
Learn more and register for the 2026 Spring Meeting and 22nd GCPS
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