Process Design

As mentioned earlier, a capstone design project in the final year of the program completes the formal education of a chemical engineer. This is accomplished at the University of Idaho through a two-semester sequence of courses called Process Analysis and Design I and II. Typically, a student is assigned a comprehensive project that requires him/her to apply the concepts learned in other courses and present a detailed solution. The student invariably is required to submit a technical document and make a presentation to the class, college, or a wider audience. The project may be an individual or group assignment and may involve building working prototypes and conducting demonstration experiments. The scope of the project may be as wide as designing a complete plant for the production of a chemical, or it may be very specific and focused, such as removing a particular contaminant from a specific effluent stream.

Students typically learn the fundamentals of process design and plant economics in the initial part of the course at the beginning of the final year. Cost estimation of process units, accounting for capital and operating costs, cash flow, and return on investment analysis are some to the topics covered in the course [11]. Students learn the techniques to assign economic value to the engineering activities. Students may also get experience working with commercial process simulation software used in industry. The design course is thus the final step in preparing a student for a chemical engineering career. It is not unusual for a private industry or a public sector employer of engineers to agree to provide actual engineering problems related to their businesses as senior design problems for student groups. Such entities may participate in the design process by providing funding or advice as appropriate. Such real-world problems are often especially beneficial to the learning process.

Students enrolling in these advanced courses should have the necessary academic preparation, which is accomplished through the fundamental chemical engineering and engineering science courses.