EAS 140, Lecture 5Chemical Engineering

Director of Undergraduate Studies:

Professor Kofke, 510 Furnas

Director of Graduate Studies:

Professor Mountziaris, 905 Furnas

Chair

Professor Lund, 306 Furnas

Looking Back to the Turn of the Last Century...

Fear that soon it would not be possible to feed all the people in the world.

Chemical Engineers solved the problem– Haber (1918 Nobel Prize)/Bosch– Process for synthesis of ammonia

And now at the turn of the 20th century:– Global warming– Protection of the environment– Depletion of natural resources

Ammonia Synthesis Plant

Jobs CEs Do

Flow (pump/compressor size, pipe size, pressure drops through equipment)

Reactor Design/ Reaction Engineering Heating, Cooling, Refrigeration, Heat Transfer Materials (polymers, metals, ceramics,

catalysts) synthesis and/or selection Separation (reactants, final products) by

many methods (distillation, absorption, adsorption, crystallization, etc.)

Jobs CEs Do

Plant Design / Process Optimization Safety Plant Operation Environmental / Waste Treatment Sales, Marketing, Distribution Law, Medicine, Management Education

Tools CEs Use Mathematics (algebra, calculus, differential

equations, numerical methods) Chemistry (inorganic, organic, physical) Mass, Energy and Momentum Balances Thermodynamics and Kinetics Transport Phenomena / Transfer Operations Unit Operations Process Control & Optimization Process Simulators Modeling and Computation

Industries that Employ CEs Petroleum, petrochemical, chemical Plastics / polymers Pharmaceutical Fine and high performance chemicals Food Microelectronics Biotechnology Automobile Education and Professional

CE Case StudyDissolution Kinetics

Consider making the catalyst for ammonia synthesis– Primarily iron with added alumina and potassium– Catalytic performance is severely degraded by

impurities

Raw material (perhaps ore) contains many, many impurities– Therefore need to purify it– One way is to dissolve the iron from the ore and then

re-crystallize it or precipitate it in pure form

CE Case StudyTime is $$$; Energy is $$$; Everything is $$$

Need to know how fast the ore will dissolve– Determines how big the equipment is and/or how long the

dissolution process runs– Expect the rate of dissolution (how fast it dissolves) may change if

other factors change» agitation (stirring)

» temperature

Perform an experiment to obtain the rate data needed– Use the experimental data to develop a model (i.e. math

equations) for the rate of dissolution– Then can use the model to design the equipment

CE Case Study

Probably would dissolve ore in acid– not practical for EAS 140– so we’ll play let’s pretend

Let’s pretend ...– a sucker is iron ore– water is acid

And let’s do an experiment to measure the rate of dissolution

CE Case Study The case study is due at the start of Lecture

10 You will work in groups, as a team A full description is posted on the EAS 140

web site– How to do the experiment– What to do with the data– Some additional sets of data to work with– What you are expected to turn in– The grading criteria for what you turn in