Teaching chemical product design using design projects

Publication date: July 2018Source: Education for Chemical Engineers, Volume 24Author(s): Ka Y. Fung, Ka M. NgAbstractProduct design has been gradually taking hold in the chemical engineering curriculum at various universities. At present, it is considered hard to teach by most faculty members, partly because there exist only limited teaching materials, particularly those that can be used for independent student design projects. To fill this gap, this paper presents a multidisciplinary, hierarchical procedure that guides students to design a chemical product – molecular, formulated, functional, and device in a systematic manner. It begins with a market study to gather market information, compare competing products, and identify the qualitative product attributes for satisfying consumer preferences. Then, these product attributes are converted to quantitative technical parameters through heuristics, mathematical models, experiments, tools, and databases. Next, a suitable manufacturing process is synthesized to produce the product with the required product specifications, followed by a financial analysis to evaluate product profitability. All of these concepts in the procedure are reinforced in a product design project. In conducting a design project, the students are encouraged to synthesize a novel product and to consult with other professionals such as business personnel, chemists, and material scientists to appreciate the multidisciplinary nature of product design. Two cas...
Source: Education for Chemical Engineers - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research