The flue gas from waste incineration power plants contains high-level zinc species that may deactivate the catalyst for selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of nitrogen oxides (NO[subscript x]) with NH[subscript 3]. A comparison experiment was designed to investigate the effect of different types and Zn/Ce molar ratios on the performance of…

Complex problem solving is one of the skills desired in the 21st century workforce. Students can improve their problem-solving skills by working on homework problems, and creating new problems can be a stimulating and inventive exercise for student as well. Our previous studies explored the impacts of a novel homework pedagogy where students…

The development of proficiency in the practices used by scientists and engineers is considered an important student outcome of laboratory instruction. We developed tasks to assess students' use and development of selected scientific and engineering practices in the general chemistry laboratory using an adapted evidence-centered design approach. In…

The authors developed a lesson for teachers to integrate chemistry and culinary arts, providing students with an opportunity to participate in three-dimensional learning, engage in science and engineering practices, and apply disciplinary core content and crosscutting concepts (Krajcik et al. 2014). The project involved five classes: three…

Traditional engineering textbooks are substantially limited by approaches relying on analytical solutions where most of the applications are described by differential equations without simple analytical solutions. An alternative is to design a textbook around computer-program-based simulations, where the simulations progressively evolve through…

Engineering design is an ideal perspective for engaging students in college science classes. An engineering design problem-solving framework was used to create a general chemistry lab activity focused on an important environmental issue--dead zones. Dead zones impact over 400 locations around the world and are a result of nutrient pollution, one…

In the present theoretical study, we introduce the entropy concept into Chi's ontological shift theory. Chi distinguishes between two categories of process phenomena, direct and emergent, and claims that incorrectly considering emergent processes as direct ones is one of the sources of students' robust scientific misconceptions. The present study…

A unit operations laboratory course was significantly modified to be an open-ended problem-based experience with an emphasis on teamwork and communication skills. Students were surveyed to assess gains in engineering self-efficacy as well as to indicate which course structure components were most beneficial to learning. Students showed significant…

This study seeks to develop a better understanding of the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering by analyzing the gender gaps (a) in the interest in pursuing a science degree and (b) on science achievement. We use national-level college admissions data to examine gender differences and to explore the association between these…

Synthesizing and testing bicomposite adsorbents for the removal of environmentally problematic oxy-anions is high on the agenda of research-led universities. Here we present a laboratory module successfully developed at Imperial College London that introduces the advanced undergraduate student in engineering (chemical, civil, earth) and science…

A simple low-cost experiment has been developed for the measurement of the binary diffusion coefficients of liquid substances. The experiment is suitable for demonstrating molecular diffusion to small or large undergraduate classes in chemistry or chemical engineering. Students use a cell phone camera in conjunction with open-source image…

This article describes the work being undertaken to make more use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a green solvent. It discusses how the use of surfactants can address the limitations of supercritical CO[subscript 2] in dissolving solutes that are polar and of higher molecular weight. The design of appropriate hydrocarbon CO[subscript 2]-philic…

Coupled oscillators are an example of resonant energy exchange that is an interesting topic for many students in various majors, such as physics, chemistry, and electrical and mechanical engineering. However, this subject matter is considered too advanced for freshmen and sophomores, usually because of the level of mathematics involved.…

The Northwestern University Initiative for Teaching Nanosciences (NUITNS) at nanohub.org Web site combines several tools for doing electronic structure calculations and analyzing and displaying the results into a coordinated package. In this article, we describe this package and show how it can be used as part of an upper-level quantum chemistry…

The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, is home to North America's first undergraduate program in nanotechnology. As part of the Nanotechnology Engineering degree program, a scanning probe microscopy (SPM)-based laboratory has been developed for students in their fourth year. The one-term laboratory course "Nanoprobing and…