A laboratory experiment is described in which students carry out immobilization of the enzyme invertase via entrapment in alginate (Ca-alginate) and, accordingly, estimate values for kinetic constants and mass transfer coefficients. Immobilization of enzymes, or confinement thereof to a defined space with retention of most catalytic activity, is…

The electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen is a critical step in many green chemistry processes. The key to the efficiency of water electrolysis is the synthesis of an appropriate electrocatalyst. Three-dimensional (3D) printing is an increasingly important part of many industrial processes. In this study, we propose an efficient laboratory…

During the SARS-2-COVID pandemic our institution sought to continue the teaching and learning of experimental laboratories by designing, assembling, and delivering a microscale chemistry kit to the students' homes. Thanks to this approach students were able to perform [approximately]25 experiments during each one of the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021…

This work presents a laboratory to help chemical-engineering students understand the basic concepts of corrosion. This laboratory has been performed since academic year 2011-2012 in the framework of the subject "Design of equipment and installations" for the third year of the Chemical Engineering Degree of the University of Castilla-La…

The development, testing, and classroom implementation of a low-cost, reproducible, desktop sized, highly visual double-pipe heat exchanger are presented. Quantitative measurements with the module reveal its usefulness for demonstrating basic and advanced convective heat transfer theory while worksheet-guided inquiries promote student engagement.…

Organic semiconductors (OSCs) are making great progress as active components in alternative energy and flexible electronics technologies that are of interest to many undergraduates. However, in materials governed by the confluence of multiple length scales (molecular (Angstrom), intermolecular (nm), domain (100s nm)), providing a pedagogically…

Chemical engineering is a challenging field to explain to first-year students. Food production processes are a safe and accessible way to introduce the students to basic engineering concepts. Modernist cuisine -- using scientific methods and engineering techniques to enhance classical cooking -- was used as a hook to capture the attention of…

Recent advances in computer hardware and algorithms are spawning an explosive growth in the use of computer-based systems aimed at analyzing and ultimately correlating large amounts of experimental and synthetic data. As these machine learning tools become more widespread, it is becoming imperative that scientists and researchers become familiar…

A Unit Operations Laboratory (UOL) is fundamental to undergraduate chemical engineering education. This article discusses a new course structure for the University of Kansas UOL and details for three new experiments covering the fundamentals of vapor-liquid equilibrium, fluid mechanics, and kinetics. Students apply knowledge from these courses as…

Zero-order systems provide an interesting opportunity for students to think about the underlying mechanism behind the physical phenomena being modeled. The work reported here is part of a larger study that seeks to characterize how students integrate chemistry and mathematics in the context of chemical kinetics. Thirty-six general chemistry…

A general tank-draining problem was used as an experimental project in two undergraduate-level chemical engineering courses. The project aimed to illustrate the critical nature of experimentation in addition to use of mass and energy conservation principles in developing mathematical models that correctly describes a system. The students designed…

In this work, a laboratory experiment to introduce graduate students to nanotechnology is described. Students prepared poly(lactic-"co"-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles using two different synthesis procedures, a single and a double emulsion-solvent evaporation method. The students also performed a physicochemical characterization of…

The thermodynamic formalism of ideal solutions is developed in most of the textbooks postulating a form for the chemical potential of a generic component, which is adapted from the thermodynamics of ideal gas mixtures. From this basis, the rest of useful thermodynamic properties can be derived straightforwardly without further hypothesis. Although…

Research in Science Education has shown that often students need to learn how to identify differences and similarities between descriptive and explicative models. The development and use of explicative skills in the field of thermal science has always been a difficult objective to reach. A way to develop analogical reasoning is to use in Science…

Calcium looping is based on the simple premise of the reversible reaction between CO[subscript 2] and CaO. This reaction can be used for separation of CO2 from a mixture of gases; most notably the technology finds applications in CO[subscript 2] removal from gas streams in fossil fuel-based energy systems. This article gives a brief overview of…