ChEnected Posts by Martin Bergstedt

Martin Bergstedt

Martin Bergstedt is an experienced executive, with a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Minnesota. He first joined Economics Laboratory at their pilot plant, performing process development and plant start-ups. From there he held positions of progressively increasing scope and responsibility at ETD Technology and DuPont Electronics, and then spent ten years in General Manager positions with Aptus (Westinghouse) Environmental and USFilter (Veolia). He worked at U.S. Water Services as Director of Engineering and Project Management, overseeing the design, specification and installation of water treatment systems for 60 new ethanol plants in a three year period, and is currently General Manager, Eastern U.S. at Amazon Environmental. His greatest successes are when taking underperforming or inexperienced organizations and forging a cohesive effort to accomplish the project or profit objectives.

Integrated CO2 Capture, Transport, and Storage (SECARB) Project

January 13, 2015. By Martin Bergstedt
In a joint effort between the public and private sector, a demonstration project encompassing the post-combustion capture of CO2 from a coal-fired power plant, and its subsequent pipeline transportation and underground storage is underway in Alabama. Named the SECARB project (for Southeast Region Carbon Sequestration Partnership), the details and results of the project were outlined by Gerald Hill.

Your First Year as a Manager

May 01, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
If you are considering or have been offered a management position, how are things going to change for you? What is that first year going to be like? Dr. Jonathan Worstell outlined some answers to these questions and a framework for the transition of the new manager.

Bioconversion of Methane

April 29, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
Developing biological processes that yield bio-fuels that that are devoid of oxygen moieties, and thus don't need to be upgraded, is some of the current work that is going on at Calysta Energy, as reported by their CTO, Dr. Josh Silverman.

Electrochemical Processes for Bio-Oil Deoxygenation

April 23, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
Biomass fast pyrolysis yields oxygen rich (hydrogen deficient) hydrocarbons of inferior fuel quality. They contain upwards of 40 dry-weight % oxygen, whereas petroleum contains around 1%, so these bio-oils must be upgraded to be rightfully considered a replacement for liquid fossil fuels. Jack Ferrell of NREL's National bioenergy Center spoke at the Spring Meeting about their program to develop electrochemical hydrodeoxygenation processes.

Membrane Catalytic Reactors for Healthy Eating!

April 21, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
Because of the limitations inherent in current liquid hydrogenation technologies, the hydrodeoxygenation of pyrolysis bio-oils is proposed to be accomplished using a catalyzed membrane reactor. During preliminary trials with vegetable oils, an unexpected benefit was discovered in that the system yielded much less trans fats in the end product.

Modular Reactor Systems for Remote Waste-Gas Conversion

April 14, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
The difficulties in capturing and efficiently utilizing flare gas in the Northern Shale Oil fields are primarily ones of scale and lack of infrastructure. The Ceramatec corporation is working on cost effective modular solutions to this challenge of energy conservation and conversion.

The World Needs Engineering Judgment

April 09, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
William Banholzer, retired Dow Chemical CTO, gave an insightful and wide-ranging address on the the state of technology changes for the future, and the chemical engineer’s special capability to make sensible and better decisions for the direction of these changes, especially in the field of energy.

Is There a "Magic" Biomass Crop?

April 07, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
Dr. Shijie Liu of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry presented a thoughtful overview of the biofuels evaluation protocol that was assembled and applied in The Manomet Report for the State of Massachusetts.

Mercury Removal at Coal-Fired Power Plants

April 04, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
Removal of Mercury from the combustion air stream at a coal-fired power plant is one of the most sensitive and challenging tasks of pollution control. Dr. Noah Meeks of The Southern Company discussed mercury removal strategies.

Freshmen Chemical Engineers in Legoland

April 02, 2014. By Martin Bergstedt
Dr. Bill Elmore at Mississippi State University has begun a class for freshman ChemEs, drawing on Legos to help incoming students find out whether the chemical engineering program is where they truly want to be.