In the past two years since 2011, the course instructor (Dr. Xu), along with the students in the Green Process Engineering (GPE) class and TAs, has developed an innovative undergraduate laboratory course that integrates laboratories for particulate operations, heat and mass transfer courses. The integrated lab course runs as research projects that apply and integrate the concepts reviewed in the above courses. One of the key objectives of this course is to train team work and leadership. To this end, the students are grouped into 4 groups, and each group carries out one of the following 4 projects for 6h/week and approx.6 weeks, rotates the projects and completes all by the end of this full-year course: (1) Particulate operations - heterogeneous catalyst particles (Au/MgAl2O4) formation, handling and characterization; (2) Convective heat transfer enhancement in a stirred tank reactor; (3) Liquid phase mass transfer in a gas-liquid stirred reactor system; (4) A green process for the production of acetic acid via aqueous phase oxidation of ethanol with air using Au/MgAl2O4 catalyst: effects of mass transfer and reaction kinetics. As the course learning objectives, students should be able to propose experimental methodologies and design their own experimental procedure, secure and prepare their own experimental materials and equipment and facilities, perform the experiments and collect data, interpret the experimental results using the principles and knowledge from the relevant courses, and present their results effectively.
Principles and strategies for green process engineering