(238h) Case Studies for Vertically Integrated Curriculum Projects

Often, students are unable or unwilling to â??connect the dotsâ? when it comes to various courses in the chemical engineering curriculum. To combat courses being interpreted as isolated or unrelated to one another, U.C. San Diego has begun experimenting with a curriculum-wide course project. In this project, students are exposed to a single industrial-scale chemical process and repeatedly analyze it from different perspectives in each class. Starting with material balances, expanding to complex energy/entropy/exergy balances in thermodynamics, to designing the reactors, and so on. In this discussion, several case studies already implemented as UCSD are discussed, including: methanol synthesis, the Haber-Bosch process, vinyl chloride production, and hydrodealkylation (HDA) of toluene. Specific focus will be attached to how the projects progressed and expanded from course to course.