Project Description:
One of the goals of the chemical engineering curriculum at Cooper is for students to have an understanding and awareness of the professional, ethical, and safe application of their knowledge; this project provides budding engineering students an opportunity to learn about that goal by teaching them about environmentally responsible engineering using polymers (plastics) as an example.
The first part of the project will have students learn about how chemicals are made and what sorts of processes are used to make them. A necessary part of making these products is using energy and making waste - they will learn about the different byproducts of these chemical plants.
Next we will learn about polymers: how they are made, their compositions, and their uses. At this point, students will be broken up into small groups, will be assigned a particular type of polymer (e.g. polyethylene, polycarbonate, polystyrene), do their own research report on it, and give a preliminary presentation about their polymer to the class. Part of the report will be finding real products which contain that particular polymer.
There will be two hands-on activities in the organic chemistry laboratory where you will make a polymer material (nylon) and see how the waste from creating these chemicals is created. Our goal is for these activities to give students perspective on the large amounts of raw materials and energy that are used in creating final products.
After that, we will learn more specifically about the chemical plants where these products are made: how to find out what amounts of raw materials and energy you would need to make each product, the wastes associated with its creation, etc. Finally, students will create their own design for a chemical process which makes their polymer. Each student will write a report that explains what they've learned in an authoritative and well-researched way (professionalism), outlines the risks in creating and using their plastic (ethics), and lists the risks to people who are involved in the supply chain for making their product (safety).
Student Final Presentations:
2011
2013
Group Pictures:
