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Process, Product and Sustainable Chemical Engineering Challenges
Process, Product and Sustainable Chemical Engineering Challenges
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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Teaching chemical engineering has always been faced with a dilemma: either keep in touch
Received 25 October 2007 with industry needs or incorporate new scientic concepts into the curriculum. In this paper,
Accepted 17 December 2007 a short historical analysis of the evolution of chemical engineering teaching is presented
and the recent trends of the two previous facets (industry and science) are briey reviewed.
The process vs product engineering concept is proposed as one of the means to achieve
Keywords: a better alignment between the curriculum and industry needs. A chemical engineering
Product teaching framework, based in part on a product and a process oriented component, which
Process has been in place in our department 5 years ago, is described and discussed. The concept of
Engineering sustainable chemistry, including process and product considerations, which can be seen as
Sustainable chemistry the next frontier in chemical engineering education, is nally analysed from the education
Education point of view.
History 2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 83 17 53 90; fax: +33 3 83 32 29 75.
E-mail address: Eric.Favre@ensic.inpl-nancy.fr (E. Favre).
1749-7728/$ see front matter 2008 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ece.2007.12.002
e d u c a t i o n f o r c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r s 3 ( 2 0 0 8 ) e22e27 e23
should we (or could we) once more increase the box, in order
to leave time for new teaching units? Or do we consider that
the size of the box can by no means be changed, so that some
teaching units should decrease (or disappear) if new ones are
needed?
Apart from the size of the box, the content obviously plays
a key role and also addresses difcult questions. A subtle
balance between rigorous scientic concepts and useful (but,
sometimes, too empirical) tools has to be proposed. A problem
solving orientation linked with industry can be attractive to
Fig. 1 Chemical engineering vision: a bridge between student and nds increased attention in research programs as
science and chemical process industries. public funding decreases (leading, among others, to a money
driven situation). This choice can lead to a teaching approach
based on purely empirical knowledge and to a lack of con-
Apart from the historical evolution of the discipline, an his- cepts which are of crucial importance for any scientic domain
torical review of the content of the curriculum can also be identity (Bird, 1996). An engineer must indeed remain a prob-
worth for comparison purposes. Fig. 2 shows such an analysis lem solver. Such a subtle equilibrium between applied and
as a pictorial view for the 7 decades 19001970 (Hougen, 1977; fundamental aspects is very delicate to maintain, both for
Aris, 1977). The decrease of descriptive courses, the increasing teaching and research purposes; as a consequence, controver-
ratio of hard scientic topics, the emergence of new tools (sim- sial debates periodically alert to dangerous deviations of our
ulation, computer science) and new industry needs (biology) discipline either towards too practical oriented or too funda-
can be identied. At the same time, it is interesting to note mental activities.
that what could be termed the size of the box (i.e., the total More precisely, the eventual decision to change the curricu-
time dedicated to teaching chemical engineering concepts), lum of chemical engineering should be taken according to the
has signicantly increased over this period. This matter of fact, recent evolution of science and industry (i.e., CPI for Chemi-
which can be seen as the change from a specialty course to a cal Process Industries). A (probably oversimplied) summary
full undergraduate and graduate program, remains a key con- of the recent trends can be described as follows:
cern of what will be discussed in this paper. In other words,
(i) In terms of objects, the number of molecules which are
known and potentially handled by chemical engineers,
is continuously increasing (Fig. 3a). Even though a mod-
Table 1 The evolution of chemical engineering est ratio of those will be marketed, typically less than
1880: Society of Chemical Engineers (G. Davis, UK) 1% (Agam, 1994), one could wonder on the need to make
1888: First course in Chem. Eng. at MIT (USA) evolve the content of the curriculum with respect to this
1906: American Institution of Chemical Engineers
continuing trend.
1915: Concept of unit operations (A.D. Little)
(ii) More interestingly, the objects which are sold by chem-
1923: Principles of Chemical Engineering by Lewis et al.
1950: Chemical thermodynamics ical industries have undergone a profound evolution.
1955: Chemical kinetics CPI products are no more sold for what they are (i.e., a
1960: Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart & Lightfoot molecule), but for what they do (i.e., a property or func-
1963: Chemical reaction engineering tion). In other words, a chemical product is nowadays
1965: System dynamics, process control frequently a complex mixture, which has to full the tar-
1968: Environmental engineering
gets of end-use functions. This signicant evolution from
1970: Safety & risk assessment
so-called commodity to specialty has been abundantly
1973: Energy
1980: Biotechnology commented and can be considered as a major change
1985: Computing & simulation (PSE, CFD, MD) of the chemical industry (Amundson, 1988; Charpentier,
1990: Complex systems 1997; Cussler, 1999; Cussler et al., 2002; Favre et al., 2002;
2000: Nanotechnology, bio (life sciences) Hegedus, 2005).
(iii) Given the interest of the CPI with products, the number
A tentative inventory of the historical landmarks of the discipline.
of scientic papers dedicated to this topic has increased
e24 e d u c a t i o n f o r c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r s 3 ( 2 0 0 8 ) e22e27
Fig. 3 (a) Evolution (unit = thousands) of the number of molecules since 1900. (b) Number of scientic papers (in thousands)
including the keywords formulation and technology () and chemical engineering and product () (Source: Chemical
Abstract Services).
tremendously (Fig. 3b). It could be expected that this In our department, we decided to apply the last approach
large research effort has provided new tools for engineers 5 years ago. A product-centered or a process-centered elective
working in a product area, which could be of interest for path have been developed, in order to take into account the
chemical engineering education. needs of industry. We give hereafter a brief description of this
(iv) Finally and logically, statistical analyses performed in the new curriculum.
US and in Europe (including in our own department) con-
rm that an increasing number of chemical engineers are
2. Product vs process engineering
hired in industry in order to work within a product (and
not strictly process) framework (Cussler, 1999; Cussler et
al., 2002). 2.1. Rationale
Fig. 4 Overall framework of the product and process engineering teaching organisation developed in our department
(Ensic, Nancy) since 2000.
become chemical engineers and should be able to discuss cepts and tools which are developed can help the students
with chemists, process engineers and tackle the problems to nd their way in the complex product design and engi-
of a chemical industry. neering framework. A series of characterization techniques,
(iii) The choice of the product or process elective is free. dedicated to product structure analysis, is also provided. Last
(iv) The elective specic teaching units are limited to the last but not least, the students are asked to perform a product
three semesters of the graduate studies. The rest of the design project based on a team work, according to the four
curriculum is the same for the students. steps proposed by Cussler and Moggridge (2001): identication
(v) No supplementary time is allocated to teaching. In other of consumer needs, ideas, selection and design. As examples,
words, the size of the box (number of hours of teaching), a single dosage gel bead for syrup preparation at home, a u-
which has been discussed before, remains unchanged. orescent hair gel or a dry sprayable paint for car tuning have
been proposed in the last years. It is expected that, based on
2.2. Curriculum and syllabus this teaching package, an efcient approach could possibly be
achieved and lead to the selection and the in-depth knowl-
A sketch of the content of the 5 years curriculum is shown edge of critical manufacturing steps. It is interesting to note
in Fig. 4. A more detailed presentation has been published that the latter was considered as the denition of chemical
earlier (Favre et al., 2005). After 2 years of undergraduate stud- engineering by Astarita (1990).
ies, usually performed in France in special classes with a
strong emphasis on mathematics, physics and chemistry, the 2.3. A 5 year experience feedback
students have a classical set of teaching units in common:
chemistry (mineral, organic, analytical, physical), thermody- After 5 years of the product vs process experience in our
namics, uid mechanics, transport phenomena, numerical department, it might be wise to achieve some kind of feedback
methods, process control, chemical reaction engineering, in order to evaluate the pros and cons of the new curriculum.
separation processes, process systems engineering and unit These can be summarized as follows:
operations. At the end of this three semester period, they are
expected to be able to tackle a design project, for which the (i) First, we notice the difculty in communicating on the
production of a given molecule of target tonnage and purity product engineering concept. It is obvious that this term is
is demanded. This capstone (or design) project takes place rather new (Cussler and Wei, 2003) and that the number of
after the three semester period and it closes the core chemical educational initiatives in this eld remains limited (Costa
engineering teaching syllabus. et al., 2006). This difculty applies both to people in indus-
At this stage, the students are asked to choose between try and students. There is a frequent confusion with a
the process or the product elective. A brief overview of the strict chemistry teaching framework (often called formu-
teaching blocks for each of this elective is given in Table 3. lation), or with materials science (especially for polymer
For the process elective, basically, a large amount of mod- based products). We have to continuously recall that what
elling, simulation (CFD, PSE. . .) and optimization is given. The is taught is neither chemistry nor material science, but a
methodology corresponds to the most advanced methods that chemical engineering package dedicated to product pro-
can lead to a rigorous plant or process design. Complementary duction.
teaching units such as safety, energy uses, polymer production (ii) In terms of student choice, quite large uctuations
or biotechnology are also provided. between the two electives have been observed from year
For the product-centered elective, a completely different to year. We observe that students that choose the product
situation prevails. The students are rst taught the properties elective are usually more open to research and develop-
of mostly colloidal systems (e.g., polymers, surfactants, pow- ment positions. A large proportion of them continue their
ders, gels, nely dispersed suspensions), which correspond to studies to a PhD and a signicant proportion seek to go
a large majority to formulated products. In a second step, the abroad after graduating.
largely unconventional processes which are used for prod- (iii) From the teaching philosophy point of view, we still
uct production are described with a chemical engineering have questions which remain essentially unsolved. For
approach: granulation, compaction, spray drying, emulsica- example: how and what to teach on biological sciences?
tion, extrusion, coating. . .. It is obvious at this stage that, given Students have indeed a very limited knowledge in biol-
the complexity of the products, the methodology which is pro- ogy after their 2 years in so-called classes preparatoires
vided is not as rigorous and as predictive as the one taught (Fig. 4). It is difcult to identify how to provide to
for the process part. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the con- them the essential concepts in biology within a mini-
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Table 3 An overview of the teaching units and targets for the product engineering and the process engineering electives
Teaching units Targets
Process engineering Advanced modelling and simulation techniques Model, simulate and optimize a chemical engineering
elective problem from the process point of view.
Computational Fluid Dynamics
Advanced mass transfer and reacting systems
Optimization techniques
Process Intensication
Polymer processing
Biotechnology
Applied energetics
mal teaching volume (typically a 20 h teaching block). ing from a formula, such as a polymer in solution for
Important issues such as the structure and properties instance, we try to predict the properties according to sci-
of biomolecules, enzyme and microbial kinetics, genetic entic tools. Maybe some computing approaches could
engineering and biotechnology. . . have to be included be useful to tackle this inverse problem (Westerberg and
somewhere in the syllabus. However, we still wonder Subrahmanian, 2000).
on the best strategy to achieve this purpose. Simi- (v) Another difculty arises from the fact that students most
larly, molecular modelling seems extremely promising often do not make connections between their subjects.
for understanding structure/property relationships or to Apart from the product design project, how might we
understand how complex molecules or mixtures behave; stimulate their ability to develop a holistic approach?
but, how far should we go with molecular modelling (vi) Finally, students are often frustrated that we cannot offer
teaching? At the moment, we restrict the teaching effort all of the experimental support that would be needed (or
to a limited series of lectures. Should we increase this dreamed of. . .) when they achieve their design project.
topic? Finally, we have difculties teaching the multiscale To the best, they can carry out some modest tests, but
approach, which is often at the heart of the product design a rigorous lab scale production and the associated prod-
rigorous understanding. How could we teach this? Which uct characterization can hardly be proposed for all the
simulation tools should we use for this purpose? types of products that they invented. We do not know how
(iv) We have identied, through evaluation forms, the key role to provide a decent experimental support in order not to
of the product design project. Students usually say that restrain innovation.
this exercise is extremely positive since it forces them to
use different concepts and teaching units. At the same
time, they can test their ability in terms of innovation, 3. Sustainable chemistry: educational
which is and more and more asked by industry (Trainham challenges
et al., 2007). Nevertheless, we, teachers, still are com-
pletely lost when student address what we call an inverse We will close our paper with a more prospective analysis.
problem to us: they identied a consumer need and the According to industry and experts forecasts, it might be that
corresponding product properties (step one of the product the next frontier of chemical engineering education will be
design project). But how can we translate the properties the biology or nanotechnology revolution (National Research
needed into a tentative formula for the product? In our Council Report, 2003). This statement applies particularly for
lectures, an opposite approach is most often used: start- the US industry and chemical engineering curricula will prob-
e d u c a t i o n f o r c h e m i c a l e n g i n e e r s 3 ( 2 0 0 8 ) e22e27 e27