(588b) Integrating Theory and Practice Into Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Courses: Active Learning in Teaching Chemical Reaction Engineering and Unit Operations

Project-Based Learning was select as a tool to achieve active learning in chemical reaction engineering and Unit operation courses at Universidade Federal do Ceará. Chemical reaction Engineering (TF324) and Unit Operations II (TF325) are 4-credit-hour courses that are taught to chemical engineering students at the fourth year. The students were assigned a group-project to analyze some aspects involved in reactor design, especially heat transfer. The students worked as groups of 10–12 students and they were asked to design and construct a bench scale system (reactor and heat exchanger) on the assigned topic. The model reaction was the growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce biomass.  Heat releasing is a general property of microorganism growth, regardless the type of carbon source or if the process is aerobic or anaerobic. However, the greater the cell catabolism, the greater the number of glucose molecules consumed per unit time, the higher the released energy and hence, a greater thermal effect is registered. Some studies have shown that heat production in fermentation can be useful in several ways, both in academic research and in industrial applications. The general correlation between heat production and the various other parameters suggest that heat production may be used as a measurement for real time fermentation monitoring, oxygen consumption or CO₂ production rate. It is known that temperatures around 36 ° C cause a higher growth of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Based on that information, students were encouraged to set up a system for Saccharomyces cerevisiae production, which should consists of a heat exchanger and a batch bioreactor. The evaluated parameters for the system efficiency were substrate consumption and yeast production, as well as parameters relating to the thermal exchange. The main goal of this project was to expose engineering students (future engineers) to the design and analysis of chemical reactor with heat exchange, aiming to enhance active learning.