Degree In Chemical Engineering Research Articles

Innovative Strategy for The Improvement of Competences in the Area of Science

Objective: To design and implement a cooperative experience in the higher education institution in a subject of the Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Engineering carried out over five academic years. Theoretical Framework: Higher education today calls for innovation processes that facilitate the improvement of student learning. Method: A learning experience based on the Kolb cycle and the seminar was designed and implemented. The evaluation of the experience was carried out using the Learning Oriented Assessment (LOA) model, together with a questionnaire compiling the evaluations expressed by the students, according to the Likert scale. Results and Discussion: The results revealed that students consider that the key to learning development lies in the distribution of tasks and the ability to work actively and autonomously. Research Implications: The practical and theoretical implications of the study are discussed, providing higher education institutions with a learning strategy to improve competences in the area of science through innovation tools. Originality/Value: This research highlights innovative tools that favour the development of the cognitive skills of analysis, critical thought, internalization of concepts and consolidation of part of the contents of the subject, without forgetting the communicative skills and self-learning of the student.

Incorporating ecological economics into engineering education

Engineering students require an education which facilitates the development not just of functional design of technological artefacts and processes, but they also need to be equipped to understand and engage with their wider implications and context. Consequently, as part of the formation of sustainability informed engineers, there is a clear necessity to integrate the socio-economic aspects of sustainability in order to posit technology in appropriate contextualised settings. The chemical engineering degree programme at University College Cork incorporates a strong emphasis on integrating the socio-economic dimension of sustainability within the programme. This paper focuses on ecological economics, and how it can connect with engineering and why it is important that engineering students receive a grounding in ecological economics. It outlines the content of a five-lecture series on ecological economics given to fifth-year chemical engineering students. This includes environmental aspects, such ecological limits analysis and the use of strategies, including economic, to move unsustainable natural resource use and emissions discharges to within their ecological limits. It explores social aspects and the critical barriers to transitioning to a sustainable economy, as well as the impact of ecological economics on engineering. Finally, three consecutive final year classes were surveyed to elicit their feedback on being taught ecological economics and to test the hypothesis that the inclusion of ecological economics appreciably enhances students’ ability to engage productively with sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); a key accreditation and professional requirement for contemporary engineering graduates. Overall, most students enjoyed the material, stating that is of value to engineering students, and they provided a useful qualitative assessment of the content.

Learning by doing using the Life Cycle Assessment tool: LCA projects in collaboration with industries

Active learning, also called "learning by doing" (LbD), has resulted in positive learning outcomes in several higher education degrees. This paper describes an LbD experience within Chemical Engineering education aiming to enhance learning and transferable competencies using a Life Cycle Assessment course as a vehicle. This compulsory course belongs to the European Project Semester (EPS) program taught in the fourth year of the Chemical Engineering Degree at the University of Cantabria. From the beginning, the activity has targeted LCA practice with a strong emphasis on performance and its application as a decision-making tool in real case studies through close collaboration with regional companies. Working in partnership with industrial companies has favoured a win-win-win situation as students could apply knowledge as future LCA specialists. In contrast, companies gained valuable insights to improve their environmental performance, and lecturers enhanced their industrial networks. A public session carried out at the end of the activity created an enriching debate on subjects from a diversity of points of view (e.g., the selection of impact categories, the proposed improvements for environmental impact reduction, etc.). According to the lecturers, the competencies acquired by students through this LbD experience in life cycle assessment have notably evolved, demonstrating not only an enhanced understanding of environmental impacts across a product life cycle but also a significant improvement in critical thinking, team collaboration, and practical problem-solving skills, thereby bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and its application in real-world scenarios. This is in line with the student’s perception that considered, such as "problem resolution", "capacity for analysing" and synthesis and "capacity for information" management. These are essential not only for future LCA practitioners but for chemical engineers.

Data Science Has Exploded Across the Industry Over the Past 75 Years

In 1957, the Journal of Petroleum Technology published an article titled “Application of Large Computers to Reservoir Engineering Problems.” That was the first reference in JPT to what became known as supercomputers. The high-speed computers used in the 1957 article were capable of performing 60 million operations in about 3½ hours. They were proposed to analyze the thorny problem of multiphase flow. “It presently appears that the large computer will be required to investigate multiphase flow and to predict the flow behavior of oil and gas reservoirs considering two- and three-space dimensions.” Now, 67 years later, supercomputer speeds are measured in trillions of operations per second, and investigating multiphase flow is just one of the many uses. This extreme growth in speed has given rise to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), which has found its way into almost every corner of the petroleum industry. The Society of Petroleum Engineers and JPT has kept up with the digital advances in the industry, holding countless conferences, symposia, and other meetings centered on the digital aspects of the industry and recently creating the Data Science and Engineering Analytics (DSEA) technical discipline. In 2019, SPE launched the Data Science and Digital Engineering in Upstream Oil and Gas online publication. Four leaders in the oil and gas digital space shared their views on the current state of data science in the industry and the future of the discipline. Sushma Bhan, currently on the board of directors for Ikon Science, is SPE’s Technical Director for DSEA. Before joining Ikon, she worked for Shell for 32 years, eventually rising to the role of chief data officer for subsurface and wells. “My journey in the oil and gas industry began in 1988, when I joined Shell’s Production Computing Assisted Operations team as a programmer analyst,” Bhan said. “During my time there, I gained valuable exposure to field production operations and developed a deep understanding of real‑time data.” Jim Crompton, who claims he is mostly retired, is an associate professor of petroleum engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, a faculty fellow at the school’s Payne Institute for Public Policy, and director of Reflections Data Consulting. “My academic career started out in exploration geophysics, so my first introduction to engineering analytics came from processing seismic data at Chevron Geophysical Company in Houston,” Crompton said. “I studied earthquake seismology in graduate school, but, when I graduated, I learned the oil and gas industry paid a lot more than the USGS did, so my career goals changed.” Shahab D. Mohaghegh is a professor at West Virginia University and the president of Intelligent Solutions. “Since I started working for the petroleum industry throughout the world using artificial intelligence in 2000, I was able to work with actual data (field measurements) that has been saved by all the companies,” Mohaghegh said. “Working with actual data using AI provided several technologies that have been incredibly fantastic compared to what we have done in the past.” Pushpesh Sharma, the chair of the DSEA Technical Section, holds a PhD degree in chemical engineering from the University of Houston and is senior product manager for Aspen Technology. “Till a few years ago, the focus was on proving the efficacy of data science/machine learning methods for energy use cases,” Sharma said. “However, in recent years, the concerns are around large-scale deployment, maintenance, and the black‑box nature of ML models. Because of that, I started seeing increased focus on the deployment, explainability, and trust of ML models.”

Experience implementing curricular activities in physics to familiarize students with SDGs 5 and 7

This paper presents an experience of implementing curricular activities that aim to familiarise students with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), thus promoting sustainability and the critical contextualisation of knowledge and highlighting the scientific contributions of women. The pedagogical experience was carried out in the Physics subject of the Chemical Engineering degree at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). First, a questionnaire was administered to assess students’ prior knowledge of these goals, especially SDG 5: «Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls» and SDG 7: «Affordable and clean energy», in the first-year Physics subjects of the Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology degrees of the USC to determine the influence of the degree. The results showed that students in both degrees knew the SDGs but had difficulties identifying SDG 7. Similarly, male students of Chemical Engineering had more difficulty in identifying SDG 5. Subsequently, the classes, academic content and activities of the Physics subject of the Chemical Engineering degree were planned to raise awareness among students about the current climate, energy and social emergency in which we find ourselves, as well as the gender inequalities that persist in society. In this way, the aim was for students to acquire critical thinking skills to avoid gender blindness and to face a future with fewer and fewer mineral and energy resources. The experience was satisfactory for the students, demonstrating the importance of teaching this content in scientific subjects because they enabled reflection and critical capacity, which are essential for understanding and dealing with reality.

Impact of C‐coding self‐assessment exercises on exam performance: A study in engineering education

AbstractThe Bologna process has brought about a revolution in university studies since, among other things, it encourages continuous evaluations throughout the academic period. This situation causes already depleted teaching teams to have an additional workload, so automatic tools are needed to evaluate the new assignments. In the computer science field, the ideal evaluation technique would be to use automatic code evaluators (i.e., Java, C, C++, etc.). The main objective of this work is to analyze whether the use of C‐coding self‐assessment exercises correlates with an improvement in exam performance. For this purpose, we have collected self‐assessment exercises carried out on the AulaWeb platform belonging to the Degree in Organizational Engineering and Degree in Chemical Engineering, taken in the last 5 and 3 years, respectively, in the course of Programming Fundamentals (Fundamentos de Programación) in an engineering school of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. In total, 688 students completed these assignments. The most important results are: (a) regarding the January final exam, self‐assessment exercises have influence on the final grade and (b) regarding the June final exam, there are academic years where students forget to carry out programming problem of greater complexity making a negative correlation between self‐assessment performance and final scores achieved.

Integrated Mass and Energy Balance Course Project using Spreadsheet for a Chemical Engineering Degree Program

In this innovation, team projects from two courses offered in different semesters are integrated. On top of that, students are trained to use a spreadsheet-based tool to solve the problem in the project. Those two courses are Mass Balance (SETK 1123) and Energy Balance (SETK 2133) offered to Chemical Engineering students in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia at their second and third semester. The main objective of the innovation is to scaffold the students’ understanding of the problems given to them in the projects. At the end of the project, they should be able to clearly see the overall processes in a typical chemical industry, starting from raw materials to the targeted products, by-products, and wastes produced. In addition to that, the projects also foster digital skills by enhancing the students’ skills to use the spreadsheet tools to solve Chemical Engineering problems. This is inline with their study as the students learnt about computer programming and spreadsheet tools in their first semester. From the students’ reflections, it can be concluded that this innovation are able to increase the comprehension of the students on the two courses, increase the skills in using spreadsheet tools for solving problems and also inculcate critical thinking and problem solving skills.

More Students Going Into Petroleum Engineering Programs as Research Work Tilts to Alternative Energy

Oil companies are eagerly hiring petroleum engineering graduates, but the steep falloff in petroleum research funding is forcing a shift to alternative energy work. On the plus side, those connected with programs said most seniors have lined up jobs well in advance of graduation and some are getting multiple offers. Companies are competing for a small pool of talent, with 660 seniors expected to graduate this year, down from a peak of 2,615 in 2017, according to the annual SPE survey of colleges with petroleum engineering programs by Lloyd Heinze, professor emeritus at Texas Tech, who predicts that number will drop to 572 in 2025 based on the number of juniors. After that, enrollment looks likely to rise. There has been a 13% increase in the number of freshman and sophomore students, which is attributed to the strong demand for petroleum engineers. “Probably word of mouth is seniors getting jobs, and junior and sophomore internships is a big factor in the rise,” Heinze said. Another plus is that undergraduate enrollment is up at seven of the 10 largest programs surveyed in the US and the Middle East. “Almost everyone is up,” said Mashhad Fahes, an associate professor at The University of Oklahoma (OU), who reports that nearly all those approaching graduation have jobs in hand, often with multiple job offers. Internships were so widely available that OU had no takers for a summer program created to provide an alternative to paid internships a couple years back when those opportunities were scarce. Similar evaluations of the job market were offered by sources from Texas A&M University and The University of Texas Permian Basin (UTPB). In all cases, the jobs were mostly in oil and gas exploration and production. “They know that if they get a degree from our program, they can easily find a job in the area,” said Ahmed Kamel, an associate professor who is the department coordinator at UTPB. UTPB, which now has more PE students than OU and LSU, draws a large percentage of its students from west Texas who have grown up around the oil business before enrolling, and Kamel said many are working in the industry while in college. In addition to knowing the business, he said they offer another benefit: “Oil and gas companies want people from here who will stay here.” The program, started in 2011 as part of the business school, is now part of UTPB’s College of Engineering offering degrees in mechanical, chemical, and civil engineering. Its growth plan includes a petroleum engineering graduate program in the future, which will require increasing its research work. Kamel said that it currently has the research support it needs for teaching undergrads.

Transitions in development - an interview with Aydan Bulut-Karslioglu.

Aydan Bulut-Karslioglu is a Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Germany, where her research focuses on the epigenetic and metabolic mechanisms regulating embryonic development. After completing her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering, Aydan shifted focus to molecular biology for her Master's degree and epigenetics during her PhD in Thomas Jenuwein's lab. After a stint in the USA for her postdoc at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Aydan was awarded the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award to move back to Europe in 2018 to start her own lab. Since then, Aydan has been awarded Development's Outstanding Paper Prize for 2022 and, most recently, a European Research Council Starting Grant Award for 2023. We caught up with Aydan over Zoom to hear more about her path from chemical engineering to molecular genetics, her research and what it means to be awarded these prizes.

Analysis of the optimization of resources with Learning Analytics techniques

This paper presents an empirical study based on the learning environment through different data analysis tools. The study is applied to the subject of Theory of Machines and Materials Resistance of the Chemical Engineering degree at the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), with the aim of being able to understand and optimise with greater knowledge the way of learning taught, to know what is more difficult for the students and to create a more personalised learning environment. In order to achieve this, it is important to have as much information as possible about the use and usefulness of the resources provided to the students as a teacher. Knowing this data will allow us to provide more efficient resources and to change those that, through data analysis, are not being useful to students. The results of this research show how, through applications such as Learning Analytics, greater performance can be obtained in both teaching and learning.

Problem-Based Learning. Application to a Laboratory Practice in the Degree of Industrial Chemical Engineering

The transformation of university teaching towards a competency acquisition approach requires an update of teaching methodologies. In the case of laboratory practices, the application of the Problem-Based Teaching methodology encourages students to apply their knowledge to solve problems based on real situations, as well as efficient communication in a work environment. This paper presents the results obtained by applying this alternative teaching methodology to a laboratory practice in the last year of the Degree in Industrial Chemical Engineering at the University of La Laguna. The results confirm a greater theoretical understanding of the concepts and the ability to apply them in practice, with a notable increase in motivation and interest in their learning process.

Spreadsheet to illustrate the application of relaxation methods for multicomponent distillation separations

Rigorous calculation methods to simulate multicomponent distillation processes involve large number of variables and equations that are difficult to solve by hand and require the use of specific software. With this purpose, commercial process simulators have been included for years as learning tools in the syllabus of Chemical Engineering degrees. Nevertheless, there is thus a possibility of using these packages as a black box and strategies to mitigate that risk have been developed, as the use of spreadsheets where students can follow and check the calculation algorithms and the details of such calculations. One alternative to solve multicomponent distillation problems is the use of relaxation methods, that find the steady-state solution of a continuous distillation column by solving unsteady-state equations from a specified initial condition, thus providing an analogy with the column startup. In this work, a novel spreadsheet to apply a relaxation method is proposed. Calculation begins with the simulation of a distillation column at total reflux, which is a common way to start up these processes. In order to facilitate the development of unsteady-state equations and operation, a batch distillation column is also simulated. Finally, the evolution of a continuous distillation column from a specified starting condition to steady-state is simulated.

Wooclap for improving student achievement and motivation in the Chemical Engineering Degree

To improve the achievement and motivation of the students of the subject Mechanical Design of Equipment in the Chemical Engineering Degree, a teaching innovation project is carried out based on gamification and immediate feedback, specifically through the use of the Wooclap software. After the project design and implementation, it was evaluated using two main instruments: the institutional questionnaires of the own university and a specific questionnaire designed by the teaching team. The results suggested that the use of Wooclap in the classroom had a positive impact on students, allowing, on the one hand, to increase students’ motivation and, on the other hand, to improve their academic achievement. Likewise, the constructive comments from the students promoted the teaching team the opportunity to develop and deepen future changes and updates.

Transforming Experimental Teaching of Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer Courses Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The academic situation due to the COVID-19 lockdown forced teachers to transform conventional lessons to a fully online mode. The experimental component of chemical engineering degrees is an essential part of the courses, wherein the students usually attend a pilot plant and develop practical skills in a hands-on way. The present study shows the different methodologies developed and implemented during three academic years in the experimental component of two courses: fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Therefore, the year 2018–2019 represents a conventional scenario, in which the lessons and evaluation were conducted in a traditional mode (face-to-face). Later, the cessation of on-site teaching in the middle of the year 2019–2020 compelled the teaching staff to adapt methodologies to a distance mode. This transformation was based on the creation of new learning material: explanatory videos, online seminars, solved exercises and online tests. Finally, the end of the lockdown in the year 2020–2021 allowed the return to a mixed mode (face-to-face lessons in addition to online lessons), which enabled the redesign of the experimental part of the courses. After the end of the courses, the usefulness of the implemented methodologies was evaluated by means of collecting academic marks and student surveys. The results show that, in general, the yields were similar during the three years studied, except in the lockdown period of the fluid mechanics course in which it was slightly higher than the others. With regard to the opinion of the students, their feedback about the transformations made was generally positive.

Water 2050: Our Responsibility as YPs

From David LaFrance, CEO, AWWA: Most recently, the Last Drop column has focused on how AWWA's Water 2050 initiative is charting the course of water to the year 2050. A critical part of the initiative is making sure many voices—especially the voices of water's current young professionals (YPs)—are framing this forward-looking strategy. When I talk to water's YPs, I am left with confidence about the future. They are bold, smart, and visionary, and 10 of them have paired up and are initiating a Last Drop Takeover. What this means is, for the next five Last Drop columns, you will hear directly from them about their thoughts of the future. In this inaugural Last Drop Takeover, Progga Chirontoni and Eric Kong paint a clear vision of what needs to be done and, importantly, why. Progga is a water/wastewater engineer with HDR Engineering. She has a master's degree in environmental and water resources engineering and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and mathematics. Eric is a project engineer with Freese and Nichols Inc., with more than six years of experience in the design and construction of water production and water resource recovery facilities. Here is what they have to say about the future of water. As we approach the increasingly hot days of summer, two routines are synonymous with this season: water restrictions and road trips—as disparate as they may seem, there is a connection. When you travel across this country, you can seamlessly pass through a town with a population smaller than your local high school to a city that stretches for miles. Even those small communities are part of our world, filled with people who rely on water as much as the next person. Every one of these communities is a crucial element of our water ecosystem and ultimately the future of water. According to AWWA's 2023 State of the Water Industry report, surveyed utilities agreed on the top three issues facing the water industry: (1) renewal of aging water infrastructure, (2) long-term drinking water supply availability, and (3) financing for capital improvements. These issues are not future projections but challenges that we face today. A practical example regarding infrastructure financing is the issue smaller utilities face with dwindling populations. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) “Small Drinking Water Systems Research and Development,” there are more than 143,000 active public water systems in the United States; of those, 97% are considered small systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act, meaning they serve 10,000 or fewer individuals. These small systems are constrained by limited resources, including staff, revenue, and equipment redundancy, but they still are responsible for maintaining and replacing their community's water infrastructure. When these utilities face significant financial hardships, they can quickly fall into a feedback loop, where utility revenue is limited, repairs are postponed, infrastructure fails, and the cycle begins again. Just as this challenge exists, the opposite is just as true with areas facing rapid growth, struggling to maintain resources to keep pace with expanding populations. These and other issues, including water supply reliability, the dearth of a water workforce, a shifting environment due to climate change, and the increased need for innovative technologies, exemplify the crossroads we are at in the water industry. As we forge ahead into the future, the question that humanity has faced when a challenge arises remains the same: what do we do now? How do we face the growing challenges of water scarcity and equity? These issues need to be addressed by us—water professionals—in collaboration with local communities. We do this work not for ourselves but for the people around us. Our hope for the future is more than bare-minimum solutions; it involves thoughtful plans that enrich current and future generations. This goal requires all water professionals to take part in this endeavor, with each individual seeking to solve their puzzle piece for the common goal of protecting public health and the environment through the effective management of water. Nothing is too daunting when we all work together to face these challenges and develop solutions.

Training strategies from the undergraduate degree in chemical engineering focused on bioprocesses using PBL in the last decade

Global engineering education addresses the development of professional competencies in undergraduates to prepare professionals capable of solving complex technical problems under social, environmental, and economic challenges. In this work, training was carried out to incorporate the bioprocess research of the chemical engineering students at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellin, Colombia, using a project-based learning methodology (PBL). An open call was made to the students, and they were challenged to build a prototype which they had to support together with a written report as evidence for their admission to the research hotbed and assign them research projects in bioprocesses. In the last decade, 276 students participated in the hotbed generating 21 conference presentations, four software, 14 research articles, and 16 academic awards. In parallel, a survey was conducted to analyze the perception of graduates participating in the hotbed according to a list of 17 competency criteria relevant to the chemical engineering program. It was found that the average perception is at the highest levels (4−5), which indicates that most of the graduates value the significant contribution made by the CIBIOT hotbed to the development of a professional in experimentation, communication, and acquisition of new knowledge.

Towards the meaningful learning of thermodynamics: A proposal for teaching exergy

Thermodynamics studies the nature of energy and its forms of existence and transmission between systems. Exergy, as part of the Thermodynamics program in Chemical Engineering, plays a fundamental role in the development and promotion of processes related to energy saving. However, an analysis of the programs of Thermodynamics and related subjects for the Chemical Engineering degree in many Argentine universities revealed that there are few programs that include exergy as a component part of a Thermodynamics taught course, and those that do often use the few textbooks that address the subject. In this sense, a total of 92 textbooks have been counted as bibliography for the teaching of Thermodynamics/Physical Chemistry in Chemical Engineering. Out of that total, 39 books appear in at least two course programs, while the remaining 53 are less known books, and are cited by only one program. Of the 39 most widely used books, only 14 include the topic of exergy. On the other hand, the statistics of grades obtained by students in Thermodynamics indicate a low performance in the understanding of exergy. The results of exams showed deficiencies in different theoretical aspects related to the understanding of the topic with percentages of failure of 60%, 47% and 21% in three different evaluation instances. Moreover, the total percentage of students who could not solve the exergy problems or solved it with errors was significantly higher (> 67%) than the percentage of those who managed to solve it correctly (< 20%). In this work, a pedagogical proposal for the teaching of Exergy was formulated, contemplating the learning axes of the theoretical framework, the language and the nature of Thermodynamics. It is intended that this proposal serves teachers to promote a meaningful learning of exergy for Chemical Engineering students.

A competency-based chemical engineering curriculum at the University of Campinas in Brazil

Engineering education is being called upon to move to a student-centered teaching. New challenges demand a curriculum that considers a set of competencies to enable engineers to learn autonomously and to develop solid technical and relevant soft skills. We present a top-down methodology for developing a competency-based curricula, which was employed to conceive a new chemical engineering curriculum at the University of Campinas. Our methodology is based on four main steps: i) definition of the desired profile of students with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and their underlying competencies; ii) delineation of learning-experiences itineraries; iii) a macro conception of the curriculum entailing the logical-temporal arrangement of its learning-experiences itineraries; and the iv) establishment of each curricular component with its learning objectives. This new curriculum is integrated into the external society by experiences that engage students to practice social responsibility and develop technology based on the needs of society. Graduates’ profile and competencies were defined based on extensive surveys. We discuss how active learning methodologies can be an intrinsic part of the curriculum development process and how assessment strategies must fit the learning goals established for each curricular component. Finally, we discuss the current challenges of implementing and evaluating a competency-based curriculum.

Enabling in-depth analysis in heat exchanger network synthesis via graph-theoretic tool: Experiences in Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus

The ability and capability to analyze and benchmark alternative designs on top of the optimal network are deemed valuable competencies for current and future chemical engineers. In this context, a process graph (P-graph)-inspired tool – P-HENS is introduced to an integrated plant design unit in an undergraduate chemical engineering degree program at Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus in Malaysia. The energy recovery aspect is one of the key design elements in the integrated plant design unit. The introduction of P-HENS, which is capable of mathematically determining multiple optimal and sub-optimal solutions is considered useful for the students to (i) identify plausible heat exchanger networks (HENs) structures that may be overlooked using conventional approaches and (ii) enable a more in-depth analysis to justify the selected design. Overall, the implementation of P-HENS shows positive outcomes, where this free-of-charge software complements the learning of conventional manual approaches used in HENs synthesis. Furthermore, recommendations suggested by the users (students) are collected and compiled for potential future software development. This work serves as an essential reference for other chemical engineering educators who are teaching pinch analysis or heat integration-related courses.

Advancing students' trouble shooting skills with open‐ended questions and computer‐aided learning using Aspen Plus® in a multistage lab experiment

AbstractOpen‐ended questions and a computer‐aided learning approach using the Aspen Plus® Sensitivity Analysis Tool (OEQ‐CAL/APSAT) was used to simulate a multistage lab experiment of a piping system (consisting of pumps, pipes, and valves) as part of the Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer Laboratory course delivered within the Qatar University's curriculum for the Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. To evaluate the learning goals of this approach, three‐stage experiments were used. Results indicated that students gained a deep understanding of the material and showed a strong interest, demonstrated by the student's participation in the OEQ‐CAL/APSAT activity. As the complexity and realistic nature of cases being studied can be increased using this approach, laboratory courses can be taught more effectively, and the corresponding investigations can be expanded with virtual experiments. In addition, it is a practical choice to maximize the use of resources and an effective replacement for laboratory experiments in case of pandemics, confinement, or interest in testing the effects of hazardous conditions to ensure sustained learning outcomes.