A pilot-scale laboratory experience for an inductive learning of hydrodynamics in a sieve-tray tower

Abstract

A specific inductive teaching approach for undergraduate students of Chemical Engineering bachelor’s degree based on a laboratory experience is presented. Thus, the simple experiment performed to show an aspect of theory previously taught in a classroom is overcome. The specific laboratory experience involves a sieve-tray tower whereby a binary distillation is carried out. However, the focus is not on this separation operation but in the hydrodynamics associated with the start-up of the process, which needs a boiler as an ancillary system to supply the required energy. All these process units are usually taught operating under stationary conditions, which are achieved quickly if small laboratory units are used. In this paper, the hands-on experience is performed in a pilot plant, which makes students feel closer to industry and allows them to visualize different physical phenomena. Students work with their teammates, and they can acquire technical knowledge and develop transferable skills that prepare them for their future profession in a more engaged and motivational way. From their feedback, students feel that their mood increase, because they understand the phenomena shown in the experience better when it is performed first and then explained. Therefore, the approach is very well received by the students, so this new teaching scaffolding should be more and more developed and implemented in the chemical engineering curriculum. It is rewarding for the teaching staff because the laboratory experience helps students construct meaning by themselves in a more active and efficient way. This approach makes it possible to find and correct misconceptions in the students, to demonstrate procedures and methods used in the chemical engineering and to explain particular concepts within the knowledge area. But what is more important, it makes students protagonists of their own learning and gives them more confidence.