Mobile platforms and cloud computing allow collaborative sharing and submission of work in ways not feasible until recently. In this article, we detail how we took a writing-intensive laboratory and made the submission, reading, grading, and returning of student work online and paper-free, while maintaining familiar elements of pen-and-paper…

Laboratory experiments and computer models for studying the mass transfer process of removing CO2 from air using water or dilute NaOH solution as absorbent are presented. Models tie experiment to theory and give a visual representation of concentration profiles and also illustrate the two-film theory and the relative importance of various…

Microfluidics, the manipulation of fluids in channels with micron dimensions, has emerged as an exciting new field that impacts the broad area of nano/microtechnology. This is an important area to train the next generation of chemical engineers. This paper describes an experiment where students are given a problem to design a microfluidic mixer…

Personalized, online homework was used to supplement textbook homework, quizzes, and exams for one section of a course in material and energy balances. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that students using personalized, online homework earned better grades in the course. The online homework system asks the same questions of…

Phase thermodynamics is often perceived as a difficult subject with which many students never become fully comfortable. The Gibbsian geometrical framework can help students to gain a better understanding of phase equilibria. An exercise to interpret the vapor-liquid equilibrium of a binary azeotropic mixture, using the equilibrium condition based…

This paper describes an experiment performed by the fourth year chemical engineering students in the process control laboratory at the University of Waterloo. The objective of this experiment is to test the capabilities of a constrained Model Predictive Controller (MPC) to control the operation of a Double Pipe Heat Exchanger (DPHE) in real time.…

This paper describes the use of weblabs--web based experiments--for cooperative learning by students working together from two different locations to conduct experiments and write reports.

YouTube Fridays is a teaching tool that devotes the first five minutes of class each Friday to a YouTube video related to the course. Students select the videos, which expand the class's educational content in courses such as thermodynamics and material and energy balances. From assessments of two pilot studies using YouTube Fridays in Chemical…

Mathematical software packages such as Polymath, MATLAB, and Mathcad are currently widely used for engineering problem solving. Applications of several of these packages to typical chemical engineering problems have been demonstrated by Cutlip, et al. The main characteristic of these packages is that they provide a "problem-solving environment…

We show a new approach, based on the utilization of Matlab and Mathematica, for solving liquid-liquid extraction and binary distillation problems. In addition, the author shares his experience using these two softwares to teach equilibrium staged separations at the National Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology. (Contains 7 figures.)

A novel approach to the Chemical Engineering curriculum sequence of courses at West Point enabled our students to experience a much more realistic design process, which more closely replicated a real world scenario. Students conduct the synthesis in the organic chemistry lab, then conduct computer modeling of the reaction with ChemCad and…

An exercise to compute LLE data is presented to illustrate the problems that can arise when the isoactivity equilibrium condition is used in the LLE calculations. A much more efficient condition is obtained when isoactivity is combined with the common tangent line criterion, avoiding false solutions that correspond with very low values of the…

A common undergraduate chemical engineering experiment has been modified for on-line operation over the Internet. By adopting rapidly changing Internet and object component technologies, we developed a novel approach combining the Internet and regular laboratory equipment. The client-server applications use a Visual Basic and Labtech programming…

Describes a single input/single output feedback control system design program for IBM PC and compatible microcomputers. Uses a heat exchanger temperature control loop to illustrate the various applications of the program. (ML)

Describes an experiment involving data acquisition by a computer, digital signal transmission from the computer to a digital logic circuit and signal interpretation by this circuit. The system is being used at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Discusses the fundamental concepts involved. Demonstrates the alarm experiment as it is used in…