EAS 140, Lecture 5 Chemical Engineering

1. 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

2. 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

3. Ammonia Synthesis Plant

4. 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.)

5. Jobs CEs Do • Plant Design / Process Optimization • Safety • Plant Operation • Environmental / Waste Treatment • Sales, Marketing, Distribution • Law, Medicine, Management • Education

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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