Teaching

This course examines how chemical engineering analysis can be applied to address some of society’s current and future challenges. Particular attention is focused on the size and scale of a system and its affect on the engineering constraints and the ultimate solution of problems. The course enables students to recognize that the processes and equipment that chemical engineers design to solve local problems affect the broader problems that society faces, such as the supply of energy and preservation of the environment. The course demonstrates the power of the system balance as an essential tool for engineering analysis, and provides students with some elementary training in its use.

The fundamentals of chemical kinetics are integrated with the concepts of mass and energy conservation, from both a macroscopic and microscopic perspective, to develop models that describe the performance of chemical reactors. Topics include mass action kinetics and absolute rate theory, series and parallel reaction systems, and the mathematical modeling of various reactor configurations. The conceptual framework and tools are developed to understand and design chemical reactor processes and to interpret experimental data obtained on a laboratory scale to design pilot scale and full scale manufacturing processes.

This course draws a connection between molecular scale phenomena and concepts in undergraduate chemical engineering thermodynamics. The ideal gas law is derived from first principles, entropy is defined from a molecular perspective, and chemical potential (and fugacity) is viewed as a derivative of the partition function rather than an “ad-hoc” correction parameter for vapor-liquid equilibrium. Using the thermodynamic ensembles and multivariable calculus, a unified approach to convert between all thermodynamic variables is presented. A special emphasis is provided on the phase separation of gas-mixtures and liquid-mixtures to enable the design of solvents for applications.

This course draws a connection between molecular scale phenomena and concepts in undergraduate chemical engineering thermodynamics. The ideal gas law is derived from first principles, entropy is defined from a molecular perspective, and chemical potential (and fugacity) is viewed as a derivative of the partition function rather than an “ad-hoc” correction parameter for vapor-liquid equilibrium. Using the thermodynamic ensembles and multivariable calculus, a unified approach to convert between all thermodynamic variables is presented. A special emphasis is provided on the phase separation of gas-mixtures and liquid-mixtures to enable the design of solvents for applications.