Sagar D.

Seasoned Chemical Process Engineer| 9+ Years | FOAK & Pilot Plants → Commercial Scale | Shell · Haldor Topsoe · SABIC · IOCL · BPCL · TATA Steel · CADILA Pharmaceuticals I help deep-tech startups and mid-tier chemical companies get their process design right the first time, from conceptual flowsheet to commissioning-ready engineering package. If you're building a novel process or any first-of-a-kind plant, the engineering decisions made in months 1–6 determine whether you hit your cost target or rebuild at demo scale. I've done this work for companies like Shell, Haldor Topsoe, SABIC, TATA Steel, Indian Oil Corporation, and Bharat Petroleum, and I bring the same rigour to startups without the EPC overhead. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO I WORK BEST WITH Deep-tech and climate-tech startups at seed to Series B who need credible process engineering without hiring a full in-house team. Mid-tier specialty chemical, pharma, and energy companies that need senior-level design capacity on a project basis. I'm comfortable working under NDA, engaging with your investors' technical diligence process, and iterating fast when the process is still evolving. I've designed plants that had to survive both a technical review board and a cost-conscious CFO, I understand both pressures. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT I DELIVER Concept → Engineering package Conceptual Process Design, PFD, P&ID, Basic & Detailed Engineering Package (BEP), process control narrative, equipment datasheets, and HSE inputs, everything your EPC contractor or equipment vendor needs to move forward. Pilot & FOAK plant development Rigorous mass and energy balances, scale-up risk assessment, equipment sizing for lab-to-pilot and pilot-to-demo transitions. I design for operability and data collection, not just steady-state performance. Equipment design & specification Reactors, distillation and absorption columns, heat exchangers (shell & tube, plate, immersion), pressure vessels, dryers, humidifiers, and gasifiers, sized and specified, not selected from a catalogue. Process safety & control HAZOP, what-if analysis, PSV sizing, control valve sizing, and full process control scheme development (LIC, FIC, TIC, PIC, ratio, split-range, cascade). Instruments selected and specified from first principles. Hydraulics & fluid transfer Pump sizing and selection (centrifugal, diaphragm, progressive cavity, metering), compressor selection (diaphragm, piston, centrifugal), and pipeline hydraulic calculations. Simulation & heat integration Process modelling in Aspen HYSYS and ChemCAD. Heat exchanger design and rating with HTRI and Aspen EDR. Pinch analysis for heat recovery optimisation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SECTORS Specialty & fine chemicals · Bioenergy & biochemicals · Green hydrogen & peroxides · Petrochemicals · Food & beverage processing · Pharmaceutical API manufacturing · ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHO I WORK BEST WITH Deep-tech and climate-tech startups at seed to Series B who need credible process engineering without hiring a full in-house team. Mid-tier specialty chemical, pharma, and energy companies that need senior-level design capacity on a project basis. I'm comfortable working under NDA, engaging with your investors' technical diligence process, and iterating fast when the process is still evolving. I've designed plants that had to survive both a technical review board and a cost-conscious CFO — I understand both pressures. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TOOLS Pro/II, Aspen HYSYS · ChemCAD · Aspen EDR · HTRI · AutoCAD · Dynamic Batch System Modeling in Python . Excel (custom sizing models and VBA tools) Based in Bengaluru, India. Available for remote engagements globally. Open to on-site assignments for project phases requiring it. To check my full process engineering services, go to: sherle[.]co