EAS 140, Lecture 5

Chemical 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 Study
Dissolution 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 recrystallize it or precipitate it in pure form

CE Case Study
Time 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 well play lets pretend

Lets pretend ...

a sucker is iron ore
water is acid

And lets 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