Degree In Chemical Engineering Research Articles

Overview of the current situation relating to chemical engineering degree courses

In 2020, the Conference of Chemical Engineering Directors and Deans (CODDIQ) proposed the creation of an observatory to monitor chemical engineering degrees in Spain. This representative radiography of Chemical Engineering studies offers an initial point to observe the future changes when Royal Decree 822/2021 and proposed challenges in the last Ministerial Conference on the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) will be implanted. The survey data from CODDIQ partners allow us to know important data such as (i) the 24 international quality accreditations at Spanish universities, (ii) the high demand and the required marks, an average of 7.25, for the Chemical Engineering Bachelor’s degree, (iii) 9560 undergraduate students in this degree in Spain and their gender profile which is around 43% of women, similar than women lectures, (iv) the difficulty of this Bachelor’s degree through some indicators like duration of studies (5.25 years), graduation rate (41%) and drop-out rate (26%), (v) the employability after obtaining the Bachelor's degree is very high (>70%). In addition, Chemical engineering undergraduate and graduate students indicate their expectations are covered. In this paper, some consequences of the pandemic on students' performance (lower than before COVID-19) are analyzed, despite lectures tried to innovate in their classes and the university provided adequate tools for online teaching.

Updating chemical engineering degree accreditation in changing times

Accreditation of chemical engineering degrees remains an important tool for IChemE in providing efficient and robust routes to membership for the majority of its applicants. It is likely that the required criteria for programmes will continue to evolve to reflect the needs of the various stakeholders – students and universities, members of IChemE, employers of chemical engineering graduates, and wider society. Accreditation processes will also continue to adapt as institutions seek to balance the conflicting priorities of combating climate change with operating robust assessment processes.

Implementation of the Experimental Design Outcome in the Chemical Engineering Degree Program at Technical University of Madrid (GIQ-ETSII-UPM)

This paper presents an insight on the pedagogy and strategic design of the organization of the four experimental subjects of the Chemical Engineering Degree Curricula at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (GIQ-ETSII-UPM). Outcome-based learning is applied, focused on the student’s work, centering explicitly in Experimental Design outcomes. These skills are necessary not only for research, but also for innovation activities that will be fundamental for future engineers and chemists, and students should be encouraged to practice them during their time at university. The learnings are graduated following the requirements of the courses, and experimentations are realistic and easily approached as guided or free experimentation. Students must apply previous knowledge and acquire new ones, implement attitudes, work in teams, and make their own decisions. Among the students’ free comments collected in teacher surveys carried out on more than 400 students over 10 years, there are recurrent evaluations such as “We are able to put into practice what we have studied in other subjects”. These subjects are the ones students perceive as very important toward their future. Feedback is essential to improve their experimental proposals and make them viable to avoid student frustration. The number of teachers involved is between a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 7 for 30–40 students and 14 sessions in each subject. It is essential to note that the teacher’s engagement is indispensable for the performance of this framework.

Teaching How to Research: A Case Study on Chemical and Industrial Engineering Degrees

Final Degree Projects (FDPs) in scientific and technical studies are often the first significant approach to real research and can be a challenging step for students. Their own experience at this stage can influence the students’ professional calling to a research career instead of other technical occupations. In any case, it should be an interesting experience for students, regardless of their future career. Thus, suitable guiding by academic tutors is vital to favor the engagement for scientific research as a feasible professional career in youngsters. The aim of this work was to point out our own experience when it comes to teaching how to research, inspired by research-based learning. In other words, this is an example about how to introduce final degree students to research, to prepare them for a possible future career in the research world. Specifically, the expectation for each FDP was to materialize their work in the publication of a research paper or a conference communication, in the context of research carried out in the frame of a transference project with a firm purpose: to emphasize how their work will be applied as a solution to a real problem. To achieve this goal, a general didactic guide (which should be customized for each student) is presented, adapted to a chemical engineering laboratory, mainly devoted to biodiesel and biolubricant production.

“MasterChemist”: A Novel Strategy for Reviewing Stoichiometry and Introducing Molecular Gastronomy to Chemistry Students

This article presents and discusses the results of an educational innovation that seeks to introduce the world of molecular gastronomy in chemistry lessons as a means to review stoichiometry and offer an alternative way to learn. In the literature to date, there is no evidence of haute cuisine having been employed to contextualize stoichiometry problem statements with its everyday applications. The proposed novel strategy, called “MasterChemist”, involved the participation of Spanish first-year university students taking the subject General Chemistry in the Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering. A Game-Based Learning (GBL) approach was used to solve the exercises and make the activity more appealing and interesting by adding fun to the learning process. The problems were contextualized in the use of siphons, isomalt sugar, and the spherification technique. Furthermore, dividing students into groups also boosted their cooperative skills. The students’ answers to a final survey revealed that the general opinion regarding the activity was highly positive. The undergraduates reviewed some stoichiometry concepts which we had previously observed that they had problems understanding. In addition, the attractive theme of haute cuisine made the activity dynamic and enjoyable both for students and for the teacher.

Creation of Immersive Resources Based on Virtual Reality for Dissemination and Teaching in Chemical Engineering

Chemical Engineering is a complex discipline that is mainly applied to the industrial context, which makes it difficult to approach real equipment and systems in the classroom to students. Nevertheless, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are particularly useful to encourage active and autonomous learning, normally associated with deeper levels of engagement and understanding of the subjects taught. In this way, several studies have demonstrated that immersion has the potential to increase learning experiences and improve creativity and engagement, Virtual Reality (VR) being a remarkable example. In this context, we created and shared with students two immersive resources based on VR: (a) a laboratory 360° video tour, which was used to disseminate the Chemical Engineering Degree in an Open Door Days organized for high school students; and (b) an experiential learning tool integrated with Moodle, which was available previously to face-to-face practical lessons of the subject Separation Operations. In both cases, the feedback from the participant students was positive. High school students increased their interest in Chemical Engineering Degree after viewing the 360° video, meanwhile undergraduate students found the immersive tool useful in the subsequent performance of real practical activities. From the perspective of professors, creation of these resources required purchase of equipment, time and effort, but they were highly valued as a tool for disseminating and supporting teaching, being an initial starting point for the creation of more enhanced VR-based materials.

Driving significant AAV process yield and quality improvements for systemic delivery

Rahul Chelikani obtained a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India and a PhD in chemical engineering from The University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA. After his PhD program, he started his career as an upstream process development scientist at Novavax, USA, working on the development of a bioreactor process for virus like particle (VLP) based vaccines. Then he moved onto a role in the bioprocess development division at Shire (Now Takeda) and worked extensively on development and scale up of batch and perfusion processes for different drug modalities (recombinant enzymes, monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins, and AAV vectors). In his current role at Vertex Cell and Gene Therapies, he leads a team of scientists and engineers to develop a platform process to produce AAV vectors with significantly higher productivity by evaluating new basal media, transfection conditions & reagents, bioreactor parameters and novel cell lines. He has extensive experience in mammalian cell culture, media formulation development, high throughput platform development, scale up/scale down and tech transfer of single use bioreactor processes.

Manufacturing considerations underpinning viral and non-viral platform selection

With an ever-increasing range of viral and non-viral technologies available to advanced biotherapeutics developers, manufacturing considerations must play a key role in the decision-making process behind platform selection. These considerations include the current level of innovation in the bioprocessing toolkit and its corresponding capability to address the specific challenges facing individual technology areas.In this article a panel of experts spanning the lentiviral vector (LVV), exosome, and oncolytic virus fields discuss the impact of manufacturing considerations on their respective platform selection and ongoing product/process development strategies, comparing the state of the art in enabling technology in each application area, and discussing related challenges, needs, and opportunities.Allison Hagerman, P.Eng., PMP, MBTVice President, Product Development, Oncolytics BiotechA Professional Engineer focused on biotechnology, Ms. Hagerman joined Oncolytics in 2010 and has been integral to the progress of its product development program ever since. Prior to being appointed as Vice President of Product Development, Ms. Hagerman was the Director, Manufacturing and Engineering from 2013-2017 and Project Manager from 2010-2013, during which time she led the process performance qualification for pelareorep drug substance. Ms. Hagerman is a Professional Engineer (P.Eng., APEGA) and Project Management Professional (PMP, PMI). She holds a Master of Biomedical Technology (MBT) degree from the University of Calgary, and B.Sc. degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Biological Sciences. She is an accomplished equestrian and spends her spare time on horseback.Aaron NoyesVice President of Development, Codiak BiosciencesAaron is a Vice President of Integrated Drug Substance Development at Codiak BioSciences where he leads a team focused on developing scalable production processes for exosomes and robust technology to load varied payloads into exosomes. At the start of his industrial career, Aaron worked at Millipore before joining Wyeth Biopharma/Pfizer Biotech for 12 years where he developed purification processes and focused on scale-up of biologics, including mAbs, recombinant proteins, ADCs, vaccines, cell therapies, and viral vectors. Aaron received a B.S in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a M.E in Biotechnology Engineering from Tufts University and an Engineering Doctorate in Biochemical Engineering at University College London.Laurens SierkstraSenior Director, Business Leader, Purification Thermo Fisher ScientificLaurens received his PhD in biotechnology in 1994 from the University of Utrecht after studying biology at the University of Leiden. He then joined Unilever as Project Manager and Unit Leader. In 2005, after the spinout of BAC BV from Unilever, he became CEO of BAC BV and set up the business in using single- domain antibodies for affinity purification, called CaptureSelect, which was sold in 2013 to Life Technologies. Since the acquisition by Thermo Fisher Scientific, he has been the business leader for the affinity purification business within the Bioproduction Division.Dr. Vladimir SlepushkinGlobal Head of Manufacturing, MedTherapy BiotechnologyDr. Vladimir Slepushkin is Global Head of Manufacturing at MedTherapy Biotechnology. He is leading all functions associated with manufacturing of CAR-T cells and viral vectors. Previously he was Executive Director of Vector Technology at Autolus Therapeutics, leading process development for manufacturing of lentivirus vectors in suspension cell culture, guiding assay development to support process de¬velopment for lentiviral vectors, managing CMO for GMP vector production and T-cell processing. Before that, Dr. Slepushkin was directing research vector core, and providing lentiviral, retroviral and AAV vectors for Kite Pharma. Vladimir proved successful in developing novel high-quality products by managing diverse technical groups and cross-functional teams, developing first-in-class clinical product from scratch, including facilities, equipment, manufacturing process, quality systems, regulatory CMC submissions and clinical trials design. He has proven expertise in technically understanding and leading the development and improvement of cell culture and purification processes, and operations and analytical methods, adhering to customer, regulatory, safety and environmental requirements and guidelines. Vladi¬mir is experienced in identifying and resolving regulatory and manufacturing technical problems, as well as intellectual property assessment and licensing. He has authored 61 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and he’s an author on 14 patents and patent applications.

Design and assessment of a project-based learning in a laboratory for integrating knowledge and improving engineering design skills

Mechanical Design is a subject usually included in Chemical Engineering Degrees. In this work, we present the application of a project-based learning to the lab in two different engineering degrees, in of one the most time-consuming and difficult subjects of their programs. These two degrees, Mechanical and Chemical engineering degrees, were selected in order to compare the learning outcomes and satisfaction with the activity in the degree more related to mechanical concepts and the Chemical engineering degree. Moreover, to enhance students’ enthusiasm and motivation, these sessions included an innovative manufacturing technology, 3D printing, and digital image correlation (DIC). Before each practical session, the students are encouraged to watch an online video with the fundamental aspects. In order to assess the success of this methodology, after finishing the lab sessions, the students answered a non-formal quantitative survey. The results showed that the proposed project-based learning had the ability to help integrating the knowledge and improve the skills included in the main competences. Although these results are encouraging, there are still parts of the lab activity that should be improve in order to make the activity less time consuming and the most difficult part being easier for the students.

Reaction: Process changes of PVC manufacture driven by ethane chlorination

Renyang Zheng received his PhD degree in chemistry (2012) from Peking University and now is a professor in the Science and Technology Department of Sinopec Corporation. His research interests include industrial catalysis and metal catalysis. Zhicheng Liu received his PhD degree in chemistry (2003) from Fudan University and now is a professor and senior expert at the Sinopec Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology. His research interests include catalysis of C1 chemistry and CO₂ utilization. Zaiku Xie received his PhD degree in chemical engineering (2000) from the East China University of Science and Technology and now is a professor and deputy chief engineer at Sinopec Corporation. His research interests include industrial catalysis and zeolite catalysis. He was elected academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2017.

Stephen Oroszlan and Retroviral Proteins.

Stephen Oroszlan received his early education in Hungary, graduating in 1950 from the Technical University in Budapest with a degree in chemical engineering [...].

Introducing our 2022 Early Career Advisory Board Members

Introducing our 2022 Early Career Advisory Board Members

Discussion Guide for the Kim Article.

Discussion Guide for the Kim Article.

Ramblings of a Chemical Engineer: A Book Review

Ramblings of a Chemical Engineer is significantly influenced by the author's personal experiences as a chemical engineer who has worked in a variety of chemical companies. It encompasses his college years, time as a university researcher, and professional career; it is told in a fast-paced way via a succession of vignettes that capture the highlights of the events that formed him into the professional chemical engineer he is today. It was his intention to present information about a profession in chemical engineering to potential students seeking degrees in chemical engineering. It also acts as a guide for aspiring chemical engineers and future engineers, emphasizing what they should aim for and how much fun this profession can be.

Application of Learning Analytics to Improve Higher Education

<p>In the digital era, the teacher assumes very diverse roles among which are to be an adviser, a generator of multimedia content, and more recently a data analyst. Big data analytics may play a major role in Higher Education for all the agents involved, the teachers and educators, the students themselves and the managers or heads of university centers. This paper applies learning analytics to the subject of Theory of Machines and Strength of Materials of the bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain). The aim of analyzing the available information is to improve teachers’ actions and communication, to enhance resource efficiency, to assess classroom procedures, the achievement of transversal competences, the student typology and their results, or the attitudes and commitment they acquire with the subject taught. Results show the existence of niches with competitive advantages, improvements in the quality and performance of the teaching-learning experience.</p>

A tool for mass transfer evaluation in packed-bed columns for chemical engineering students

This paper presents a Microsoft Excel tool to calculate liquid-gas mass transfer coefficients in packed towers to support numerical design activities in the courses of Unit Operations for Industrial Process and Sustainable Process Design for the Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy).The Mass Transfer Solver Tool (MT Solver Tool) uses several available models to estimate, separately, the values of liquid and gas mass-transfer coefficients and the wet surface area for 144 random and structured packings of interest for absorption/stripping and distillation processes. In addition, a separate spreadsheet can be used in a user-defined mode, to evaluate the mass transfer coefficients with new packing types or to interpret experimental data when the geometrical and physical characteristics of the packing are known. Eventually, the tool is supplied with a data library, where packing geometry and model fitting parameters can be retrieved.The software is aimed to support students and educators in the Unit Operations for Industrial Process and Sustainable Process Design courses. In particular, this is meant to be an example on how the accuracy of design algorithms adopted in unit operation processes is affected by the use of the underpinning correlations for mass transfer rate or pressure drops. Besides, this is aimed to encourage comparison of different correlations when exact field data are not available. Besides, chemical engineers and researchers interested in packed columns design and modelling data may also benefit from the utilization of the software. The MT Solver Tool was introduced to students in a dedicated tutorial lesson after lecturers on packed column design algorithms for distillation, absorption and stripping. Most of the students of the course participated to a group training aimed to simulate the design of an absorption column supported by the MT Solver Tool providing feedback on its application.After the training, an anonymous survey was proposed to the students to monitor the approval rating of the proposed activity and the use of the MT Solver Tool software to support numerical calculations.

A framework for a hydrogen economy

Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Professor at Stanford University, a faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and a Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He served in the Obama administration as the Founding Director of the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) (2009–2012), as the Acting Undersecretary for Energy (2011–2012), and as the Vice Chair of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (2014–2017). Dr. Majumdar is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. John Deutch is an emeritus Institute Professor at MIT. He has served as Chairman of the Department of Chemistry, Dean of Science, and Provost. In the Carter administration, he served as Director of Energy Research (1977–1979), Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Technology (1979), and Undersecretary (1979–1980) in the US Department of Energy. He has been a member of the President's Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee (1980–1981), the White House Science Council (1985–1989), the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (1997–2001), and the Secretary of the Energy Advisory Board (2008–2017). He has published widely on the technical and policy aspects of energy and the environment. Ravi Prasher is an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has more than 20 years of experience in working in R&D in large industry, startup, government, and academia. He was one of the first program directors at ARPA-E in the US Department of Energy. Prasher has published more than 100 papers on thermal energy science and technology and holds more than 30 patents. At UC Berkeley, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on thermal science and supervises multiple PhD students on various research topics, including thermochemical production of carbon-free hydrogen. Tom Griffin specializes in identifying high-impact technology investment opportunities in the manufacturing sector for Breakthrough Energy Ventures. He has over 25 years of industrial experience in applied technology development and deployment, including contributions over a wide range of energy and environmental sectors. He served as CTO at both Edeniq and Pennsylvania Sustainable Technologies (where was also co-founder), pursuing capabilities and applications in biofuels and catalytic fuel upgrading. Griffin was an officer in the US Nuclear Navy, directing operations of shipboard propulsion facilities. He holds SB, SM, and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from MIT and has authored or co-authored several granted patents.

Reflections on inherently embedding safety teaching within a chemical engineering programme

The importance and the challenges of teaching safety are widely recognised amongst educators and industry. There are different approaches to teaching safety, from incorporation of safety into every aspect of a degree programme, to focusing all the safety teaching within stand-alone courses, to an integrated approach which simultaneously combines both approaches to varying extents. Effective safety teaching is also dependent on the experience and knowledge of the teaching staff involved and the locational context of the institution. Here, the novel and comprehensive approaches taken to inherently embed safety teaching within a chemical engineering programme, which is part of the wider Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP) teaching framework at UCL’s Faculty of Engineering Sciences, are examined and its success is measured against student perceptions. Students following the IEP chemical engineering degree programme widely recognise that safety teaching is immediately embedded into the curriculum from the first year and they are given increasing opportunities to apply safety learnings throughout their degree. This leads to a feeling of preparedness for their capstone design projects and future industrial roles, ultimately achieving the aim of developing well-rounded, responsible graduate engineers with a strong safety culture embedded in the way they will approach their future work.

A learner's journey towards a chemical engineering degree

AbstractThe overall goal of any engineering program is to maximize the capacity of its graduates to succeed academically and professionally. We describe how a path can be designed for learners to proceed towards this goal and describe the rationale used to create its foundational steps. It begins with a summer bridge program for incoming students before entering university as first‐year undergraduates. Since the prior knowledge of these learners is not uniform, the bridge program is designed to provide opportunities for them to become better prepared academically for first‐year engineering. These students thus transition to university‐level learning more smoothly. In their first year, students work in groups to tackle socially relevant projects through an integrated 13‐unit course that is designed based on integrated learning, collaboration, problem‐solving, community engagement, and communication. Since teaching and learning using this approach is unusual and challenging, the curriculum must be carefully designed and implemented with adequate resources in place, particularly for cohorts of more than 1000 students in our case who work in small four or five‐member teams. In upper years, learning in chemical engineering is enriched by conducting discovery‐based workshops where students work on engineering problems requiring the application of new mathematical concepts. Finally, we describe a hybrid method for testing and assessment, where learners take tests individually, following which they are also provided with the option to retake these tests in groups to promote collaborative learning. Retaking tests in teams enhances the ability of learners to reflect and learn from mistakes and promotes peer mentoring.

Determination of the optimal distillation sequence of a ternary mixture incorporating heat integration by means of Microsoft Excel Solver

AbstractNowadays, the computer skills acquisition by Chemical Engineering (ChE) students is based on practical uses of specialized software packages in different applications. Process optimization courses use high‐level algebraic programming languages, such as GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System) or AMPL (A Mathematical Programming Language), which are usually reserved for advanced programs in ChE degrees or ChE M.Eng. Commercial software for process optimization has several benefits, such as the possibility of facing complex numerical problems in a more efficient and straightforward way. By contrast, they typically present expensive license fees, and students usually require intense training to get the proper user‐level skills. The use of simpler and economic software tools may help overcoming these limitations. In this context, Microsoft (MS) Excel Solver tool is a widespread software with the potential to be used worldwide by any ChE student, and with the power to solve complex optimization problems at the academic level. In this paper, we introduce the application of MS Excel Solver for the optimization of a distillation sequence for the separation of a ternary mixture, including the heat integration in the definition of the problem. This is an MINLP problem, which usually requires specialized software performing stochastic methods, such as Simulated Annealing, to achieve a solution. In this regard, the approach to solve an optimization problem using the MS Excel Solver tool shown in this study was successfully employed by a student of ChE M.Eng. at Rey Juan Carlos University and the Autónoma University of Madrid in the development of her master thesis.