Incorporating life cycle assessment and ecodesign tools for green chemical engineering: A case study of competences and learning outcomes assessment

Chemical engineers assume a broad range of roles in industry, spanning the development of new process designs, the maintenance and optimization of complex systems, and the production of intermediate materials, final products and new technologies. The technical aptitude that enables chemical engineers to fulfill these various roles along the value chain makes them compelling participants in the environmental assessment of the product in question. Therefore, the introduction of life cycle assessment (LCA) and ecodesign concepts into the chemical engineering curriculum is essential to help these future professionals to face design problems with a holistic view of the technical, economic, social and environmental impacts of their solutions. The teaching of these and other disciplines by means of student-centered methods, based on a holistic structure, have demonstrated better teamwork and communication skills. For that reason, this paper proposes a Micro (Assess-Analyze-Act) (M-3A) model of assessment mainly focused on closing the loop of the learning activities. This model has been applied to an ecodesign case study of the “University master’s Degree in chemical engineering” of the University of Cantabria/University of the Basque Country, with positive feedback of the students. They felt that the approach has allowed them to utilize their analytical skills in quantifying a situation before applying other subjective measures, and that the public discussion of the results was a satisfactory element for improving their communication skills. Moreover, the students found that the workload was nicely adjusted, highlighting the acquisition of 4 competences preferentially: teamwork, creativity; relevance of environmental issues and initiative and entrepreneurship. Finally, the students suggest that the application of this methodology into their degree could motivate future students improving their performance.     

The CHEM Jam - how to integrate a game creation event in curriculum-based engineering education

To tackle future sustainability and energy issues, novel learning approaches should be considered in chemical engineering education, particularly those encouraging learners’ problem-solving skills. This paper proposes an example for educators to integrate game-making activities into a chemical engineering curriculum. The specific activity proposed is a collaborative event, known as a game jam in Game Studies. Participants use a custom-made Game Editor for Learning to design levels for a jump n′ run/platform game. The editor facilitates the construction of games for non-game designers, has a tutorial, and is provided with inspirational gameplay videos of level examples and a template for facilitators to assess the resulting levels. This paper argues that prompting learners to create levels based on chemical concepts and structures, challenges and develops their problem-solving skills, and makes the activity valuable to be integrated in present engineering educational programs. The learning experience, named CHEM Jam, starts with an introductory phase during which participants receive essential guidance, while preserving the effectiveness, of learner-centred activities. The assessment methodology is aligned with the learning objectives of an undergraduate process design course. Finally, research and critique on the activity and how chemical engineering can benefit from game-making events and communities is discussed.     

美国一流大学化工专业课程设置研究

我国化学工业正在从传统的原料工业向知识技术密集型工业转变。面对这样的变革,如何兼顾化学工程师专业与通识能力融合培养的问题,不容回避。本文采用文本分析法,对美国一流高校的化工专业本科生培养方案开展一手资料的编码,发现其课程设置具有以下特点：培养目标强调“通专融合”与终身学习意识;通识课程与专业课程融合分布;通识课程顶层设计多元化;专业课程设置采用双柱分层递进模式。最后,本文对我国卓越化学工程师培养政策提出了建议。     

Cambridge weblabs: A process control system using industrial standard SIMATIC PCS 7

Continually assessed project work forms a core part of the Chemical Engineering curriculum at Cambridge. We have designed and built a remotely controlled chemical reactor that has been used and evaluated in undergraduate chemical engineering education. The purpose was to provide a pedagogical and authentic experience to students with essential training when laboratory usage was impossible or impractical, and be able to run and share the experiments as a fully functioning chemical engineering plant. A state-of-the-art SIMATIC PCS 7 Process Control System from Siemens is used for controlling, monitoring and providing results output. We describe the experimental setup, the hard- and software used, the teaching assignment and finally the results of the student evaluation. We also describe the challenges on the sustainability of the weblabs.     

A concept inventory for knowledge base evaluation and continuous curriculum improvement

Students at Polytechnique Montreal have demonstrated the ability to tackle large-scale, complex calculations through their integrative projects. However, high quality engineers must not only master calculations, but the underlying fundamental concepts as well — this level of retention allows them to transfer their knowledge to the new challenges they will face. To ensure this, accreditation criteria for engineering programs in Canada require the evaluation of multiple attributes, the first of which is “a knowledge base for engineering”. While most universities opt to evaluate this attribute through in-class grades, we choose to adapt a pedagogical tool (a concept inventory) to formulate an evaluation of our students. Our students are examined using a subset of questions from more than 800 chemical engineering questions, split into 10 subcategories. Data amassed over four years is presented, showing the impact of various improvements to this tool, as well as its use for instructor feedback and curriculum improvement. Key improvements include question revisions and targeted reviews of muddy concepts in the affected courses.     

Integration of the structured development of communication skills within a chemical engineering curriculum at the University of Adelaide

Communication skills are among the most important attributes for engineering graduates, and yet Australian employers are often dissatisfied with the level of communication skills demonstrated by graduate engineers. In recognition of the importance of communication skills, an engineering communication curriculum is fully integrated into two undergraduate courses in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Adelaide. The structured development of fundamental engineering communication skills in two Professional Practice courses (Levels I and II) is a collaboration between lecturers from the School of Chemical Engineering and the Faculty’s Engineering Communication Unit. The integration at Level I (Professional Practice I) is the focus of this paper.The success of the integration has been sustained in every Professional Practice I cohort from 2009 to 2016. Improvement is evident in the communication skills of almost every individual student, particularly for those students who enter the course with low-level skills. The wide spectrum of communication abilities, and some initial resistance from students to a focus on communication skills within an engineering course have been effectively addressed with a number of strategies. Limited success has been achieved with intervention in contributions to group reports by students with low-level skills.     

Project Management for Chemical Engineers

In North America, chemical engineering undergraduate curricula do not usually contain compulsory courses dedicated to project management. Yet, early in their careers, chemical engineers are frequently assessed based on their abilities to completely solve an industrial plant problem. The complete solution involves much more than just technical calculations. Issues such as scheduling, scope, quality, safety and costs must always be addressed. In this article, the ingredients of three lecture hours of material dedicated to introducing chemical engineering students to the important area of project management are described.     

在化工工艺学教学中培养学生应用创新能力的初步探讨

结合现今化工企业对化工人才的需求特点,对化工工艺学教学方法进行改革。首先,活化课堂教学方式,增加学生化工专业技术英语知识,将课堂教学与实践教学相结合,提高学生对所学知识的综合应用能力;其次,鼓励学生参加各种化工设计竞赛,注重培养学生的创新能力。希望在化工工艺学教学中培养掌握先进生产工艺,适应社会发展,具有应用与创新能力的化工工程师类人才。     

化学工程与工艺专业核心课程体系建设

文章从如何培养服务于北部湾经济社会发展的优秀复合型石化技术人才角度出发,结合专业教学改革,探讨了以石油化工和精细化工为培养方向的化学工程与工艺专业学科核心课程体系的构建及优化问题。指出必须建立一套结合区域特色经济、强调过程开发和工程实践能力培养的核心课程体系,从而培养熟悉地方经济特色、具备一定化学工程设计能力的地方急需的复合型石化技术人才。     

Chemical Engineers for the 21st Century – Challenges for University Education

At the beginning of the 21st century, the education of chemical and process engineers is facing enormous challenges. The number of new students has dropped substantially since the early 1990s. The globalization of the world's economy has altered the working environment and the job market for chemical engineers. The areas in which chemical engineers are active now extend far beyond the boundaries of the chemical industry. As a result, universities are having to compete much more, not only for undergraduate and graduate research students but also in order to keep courses and even departments open. This paper aims to shed some light on the current situation at the universities, the changes in the conditions and job environment in the chemical engineering field, and the demands being placed on tomorrow's chemical and process engineers and on the education they receive. From an organizational point of view, it is important that the universities actively participate in and influence this ongoing process of change. In terms of course content, increasing emphasis must be placed on teaching students modern, relevant engineering knowledge and methodological and systematic skills, as well as those aspects of their education that are relevant for the ever more flexible, interdisciplinary and intercultural nature of chemical engineering work. Elements that could usefully contribute include support for study abroad programs and the provision of broad, high‐quality extra‐curricular studies. Despite the changes that have occurred, such as the introduction of new (bachelor and master) degrees, it is essential that the universities retain their characteristic and established profiles. At the same time, it is important to make the universities more accessible to well‐qualified graduates from Germany's Fachhochschulen (universities of applied science).     

The flip side of teaching process design and process control to chemical engineering undergraduates – And completely online to boot

Two core courses have been given for several years to senior chemical engineering undergraduate students in flipped format, combining pre-class online preparation by the students, “class meetings” with the lecturer, and “active tutorials,” in which groups of students solve exercises. In 2020/21, the COVID-19 lockdown imposed online teaching of these courses to the 54 enrolled students. The objective of work presented in this paper is to explore the impact of the remote flipped classroom design on students' learning experience and achievements, in comparison to the regular flipped class in which only the first preparation phase was online. Because the course was taught completely online, a plethora of data was for the first time made available to support a thorough study of the course teaching protocol, including data from Panopto Analytics®, Zoom and Moodle logs, extensive self-report surveys, as well as actual learning outcomes (exam results). Statistical analyses including multivariate regression were performed to determine which factors most affect learning outcomes. The student surveys indicate that of the three class steps, the “active tutorial” gives students the most confidence in their mastery. Furthermore, analysis indicates that active students think that they benefit more than do passive students, as reflected by both self-reporting and final exam performances. The importance of underlying ability, as indicated by the GPA is a principal conclusion from the regression model, which also identifies attendance of “active tutorials” as a dominant positive effect on exam grades. Two important conclusions of our work are that the online and face-to-face versions of our flipped approach achieve indistinguishable learning outcomes and that students’ perceived confidence in their mastery is highest after the active tutorial.     

由教学实践充分认识化工热力学的桥梁作用

化工热力学兼有理论性和工程性,是一门实用性很强的课程。教学过程中宜强调和突出化工热力学在课程内容、课程体系、课程目标三个层面上的桥梁作用,引导学生掌握本课程的基本原理和应用方法,学会将热力学原理和模型应用到具体实践中,进而能够运用化工热力学的理论知识分析、解决化工生产和设计中有关实际问题。     

强化化工专业本科生计算机应用能力培养

以武汉科技大学化学工程与技术学院化学工程与工艺专业为例,介绍了优化培养计划、在专业理论教学中融入计算机应用和在实践教学强中融入计算机应用等强化化工专业本科生计算机应用能力培养的具体措施。指出化工专业本科生计算机应用能力的培养是一项系统工程,光靠低年级开设的那几门计算机课程是不够的,在高年级阶段还要继续强化计算机应用能力的培养。     

Chemical engineering in an unsustainable world: Obligations and opportunities

Human society faces a set of unprecedented challenges emanating from the unsustainable nature of the current societal model. The creation of a new sustainable societal construct is required, essentially adopting a needs based approach over one based on ever increasing consumption. Failure to achieve this will result in the widespread destruction of our increasingly stressed environment followed quickly by inevitable collapse of society as we know it, both socially and economically.Technology alone is insufficient to meet the challenges at hand; ecological, social and economic considerations must be incorporated through a multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary approach. Because chemical engineers possess a core set of threshold concepts which are central to a sustainable society, and because engineers will ultimately help design any new society, they bear a moral and ethical responsibility to play an active and indeed central role in its development. A new engineering paradigm is required therefore, whereby sustainability becomes the context of engineering practice. To achieve this, a sustainability informed ethos must prevail throughout engineering curricula. Both professional institutions and educators bear responsibility in ensuring this happens without delay. Some key threshold concepts are presented here to demonstrate how this can be advanced through the chemical engineering curriculum.     

Educational initiatives in teaching membrane technology

Educational initiatives are important for the continued growth of membrane technology. Recent studies have documented the need to improve undergraduate science and engineering programs by incorporating more subject matter on modern separations. Membrane processes are vital to many of the emerging engineering fields. Scientists and engineers need to be knowledgeable in this area. Manhattan College has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve the infrastructure of undergraduate engineering education. We have integrated membrane technology into the chemical engineering curriculum and have developed model laboratory experiments. An NSF-sponsored Undergraduate Faculty Enhancement Workshop was held July 29–August 7, 1991, at Manhattan College. This was a unique workshop bringing together faculty from across the country with leading experts in the field to learn about the latest advances and investigate methods of curriculum/laboratory development. The workshop had sessions devoted to various membrane processes, and workshop participants obtained hands-on laboratory experience with bench and pilot-scale membrane systems.     

化工软件在化工课程设计中的应用

化工课程设计是化工及相关专业非常重要的一个教学环节,具有综合性、实践性和工程性。本文介绍了ChemDraw、Aspen Plus和ChemCAD等化工软件在化工课程设计中的应用。结果表明,化工软件增强了学生学习兴趣,提高了课程设计的质量,强化了学生的计算机的应用能力,为学生走向未来的工作岗位打下了扎实的基础。     

Teaching chemical engineering using Jupyter notebook: Problem generators and lecturing tools

The primary objective of this study is to develop teaching materials for chemical engineering students (or students pursuing other related B.Sc./M.Sc. degrees) that encourage self-learning to facilitate understanding and the development of problem-solving skills. Tools are oriented to support the teaching of “Introduction to Chemical Engineering” courses to 1^st year B.Sc. students in Chemical Engineering, 2^nd year B.Sc. students in Chemistry, and 3^rd year B.Sc. students in Biochemistry at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). Problem generators of standard exercises, as an additional complement to the exercises that are used in the lectures, seminars, and assignments to facilitate the learning of the students, have been developed. These generators provide exercises to students with “unlimited” initial values (with certain restrictions). The software that was used to develop these materials was Jupyter Notebook, which runs under the Python 3.6 language. The problem generators can be classified into fixed problem generators, case-based generators, and random problem generators. Additionally, lecturing tools have been developed to support teaching using live/interactive examples. These examples can learning understanding of various topics of the courses.     

Teaching water desalination through active learning

Active learning refers to the direct involvement of students in the learning process rather than being passive receptors of materials. This paper evaluates the implementation of active learning in teaching seawater desalination as an elective course in chemical engineering curriculum. Desalination is a multi-disciplinary engineering science that encompasses elements of water chemistry, material science, transport phenomena, thermodynamics, engineering design, and corrosion. Water desalination is an important course in most chemical and mechanical engineering curricula, where the design and analysis of different water desalination processes are addressed. The current teaching method, however, relies heavily on classical lecture-presentation of the course materials, without any direct involvement of the students. A simple approach that utilizes Excel and Ez-Solve in designing and analyzing desalination processes has been developed. Active learning is the central part of this course development, where students are heavily involved in class activities and can directly assess the effect of input variables on the design parameters, allowing them to carry out “What If” or parameter sensitivity analysis.     

Viability of outcome-based education in teaching English as second language to chemical engineering learners

Outcome-based Education (OBE) is a student-directed learning system that enables learner autonomy, skill development, and life-long learning. Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) has started implementing OBE in her affiliated engineering institutions at the undergraduate level, being a full signatory of the Washington Accord in 2017. PEC has made it obligatory for all institutions offering engineering degree programs to implement OBE at the undergraduate level. In this regard, the present study investigated the prospects of OBE implementation in the English as Second Language learning classroom of Chemical Engineering students. A quasi-experimental method was adopted to analyze the effectiveness of OBE in ESL learning. A group of 29 students were taught through traditional pedagogy in the first half of the semester and were provided treatment over the second half. Pretest and post-test were conducted to examine the learners’ outcomes for the ESL course for chemical engineering students. The teachers’ beliefs were recorded through semi-structured interviews regarding the prospects and potential challenges to OBE in Pakistan. The quasi-experiment results showed a rise in the students' course learning outcome in the content and skills. The teachers highlighted several challenges to OBE in Pakistan, including lack of training for non-engineering faculty, teachers’ and students’ reluctance to shift to student-centered mode, institutional dictation regarding teaching and assessment, and large classrooms. This work suggests teacher training of non-engineering courses and adopting a unified learning management system.     

A framework for hands-on learning in chemical engineering education—Training students with the end goal in mind

Chemical engineering education aims to equip students with both theoretical knowledge and hands-on capability to solve practical problems. At Imperial College London, this is practiced via three laboratory-based courses, which span over the first three years of the undergraduate curriculum. The Foundation, Knowledge and Discovery Laboratories were designed based on Kolb’s experiential learning theory as well as Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. Although these courses intend to challenge students, appropriate scaffolding is in place to ensure a satisfactory learning experience across the spectrum of abilities. Assessment and survey results show that all students were capable of meeting the learning goals (>96% achieving satisfactory to excellent results in academic years 2014–2016), while a large majority is satisfied with the courses (>80% in academic years 2014–2016). The design and implementation of these courses are discussed to promote the exchange of good practices within the higher education community.