Courses 2022-23

Instruction in synthesis, separation, purification, and physical and spectroscopic characterization procedures of model organic and organometallic compounds. Specific emphasis will be focused on following the scientific method in the study of model organic and inorganic materials. Enrollment priority given to chemical engineering majors.

This course will introduce the Chemical Engineering discipline, career options and research opportunities through lectures and panel discussions by faculty and alumni. Graded pass/fail.

Introduction to the solution of engineering problems through the use of the computer. Elementary programming in Python is taught, and applied to solving chemical engineering problems in data analysis, process simulation, and optimization. No previous knowledge of computer programming is assumed.

Equilibrium staged separations. Membrane separations. Absorption. Distillation. Liquid-liquid extraction. Introduction to mass transfer.

A comprehensive treatment of classical thermodynamics with engineering and chemical applications. First and second laws. Applications to closed and open systems. Equations of state. Thermochemical calculations. Properties of real fluids. Power generation and refrigeration cycles. Multicomponent systems, excess properties, fugacities, activity coefficients, and models of nonideal solutions. Chemical potential. Phase and chemical reaction equilibria.

Special problems or courses arranged to meet the emerging needs of undergraduate students. Topics have included AIChE's annual Chem-E-Car Competition. May be repeated for credit, as content may vary. Grading scheme at instructor's discretion.

Research in chemical engineering offered as an elective in any term. Graded pass/fail.

A research project carried out under the mentorship of an approved faculty member. Before the beginning of the first term of the thesis, students must submit a proposal - with project details and significant design component clearly defined - for review and approval by the thesis mentor and chemical engineering senior thesis coordinator (Option Rep). In addition, students must submit the following to the thesis mentor and chemical engineering senior thesis coordinator: a midterm progress report in each term; end-of-term progress reports at the end of the first two terms; and a thesis draft in the third term. A grade will not be assigned prior to completion of the thesis, which normally takes three terms. A P grade will be given for the first two terms and then changed to the appropriate letter grade at the end of the course.

Training in the writing of scientific research papers for chemists and chemical engineers. Fulfills the Institute scientific writing requirement.

Elements of chemical kinetics and chemically reacting systems. Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. Chemical reactor analysis.

A rigorous development of the basic differential equations of conservation of momentum, energy, and mass in fluid systems. Solution of problems involving fluid flow, heat transfer, and mass transfer.

Analysis of linear dynamic systems. Feedback control. Stability of closed-loop control systems. Root locus, Frequency response, and Nyquist analysis. Feedforward, cascade, and multivariable control systems.

Examines the Earth's resources including fresh water, nitrogen, carbon and other biogeochemical cycles that impose planetary constraints on engineering; systems approaches to sustainable development goals; fossil fuel formation, chemical composition, production and use; engineering challenges and opportunities in decarbonizing energy, transportation and industry; global flows of critical elements used in zero-carbon energy systems; food-water-energy nexus; analysis of regional and local systems to model effects of human activities on air, water and soil.

This course combines three parts. First, it will cover fundamental aspects of kinetics, mass-transport, and fluid physics that are relevant to microfluidic systems. Second, it will provide an understanding of how new technologies are invented and reduced to practice. Finally, students in the course will work together to design microfluidic systems that address challenges in Global Health, with an emphasis on students' inventive contributions and creativity. Students will be encouraged and helped, but not required, to develop their inventions further by working with OTT and entrepreneurial resources on campus. Participants in this course benefit from enrollment of students with diverse backgrounds and interests. For chemical engineers, suggested but not required courses are ChE 101 (Chemical Reaction Engineering) and ChE 103 abc (Transport Phenomena). Students are encouraged to contact the instructor to discuss enrollment.

Short-term, open-ended projects that require students to design a chemical process or product. Each team generates and filters ideas, identifies use cases and objectives, evaluates and selects a design strategy, develops a project budget, schedules milestones and tasks, and writes a proposal with supporting documentation. Each project must meet specified requirements for societal impact, budget, duration, person hours, environmental impact, safety, and ethics.

Short-term, open-ended projects that require students to design and build a chemical process or manufacture a chemical product. Each team selects a project after reviewing a collection of proposals. Students use chemical engineering principles to design, build, test, and optimize a system, component, or product that fulfills specified performance requirements, subject to constraints imposed by budget, schedule, logistics, environmental impact, safety, and ethics.

Short-term projects that require students to work in teams to design systems or system components. Projects typically include unit operations and instruments for chemical detection. Each team must identify specific project requirements, including performance specifications, costs, and failure modes. Students use chemical engineering principles to design, implement, and optimize a system (or component) that fulfills these requirements, while addressing issues and constraints related to environmental impact, safety, and ethics. Students also learn professional ethics through the analysis of case studies.

Short-term, open-ended research projects targeting chemical processes and materials. Each student is required to design, construct, and troubleshoot her/his own process, then use chemical engineering principles to experimentally evaluate and optimize process metrics or material attributes. Where possible, cost analysis is performed.

Design, construction, and characterization of engineered biological systems. Students will propose and execute research projects in biomolecular engineering and synthetic biology. Emphasis will be on projects that apply rational or library-based design strategies to the control of system behavior.

The properties and photoelectrochemistry of semiconductors and semiconductor/liquid junction solar cells will be discussed. Topics include optical and electronic properties of semiconductors; electronic properties of semiconductor junctions with metals, liquids, and other semiconductors, in the dark and under illumination, with emphasis on semiconductor/liquid junctions in aqueous and nonaqueous media. Problems currently facing semiconductor/liquid junctions and practical applications of these systems will be highlighted. Part b not offered 2022-23.

Through short lectures, in-class activities, and problem sets, students learn and use methods in data science to complete projects focused on (i) descriptive and predictive analyses of chemical processes and (ii) Quantitative Structure Property Relationships (QSPR). Topics covered may include six sigma; SPC & SQC; time-series analysis; data preprocessing; dimensionality reduction; supervised, reinforcement, and unsupervised learning; decision tree & clustering methods; univariate and multivariate regression; and visualization. Python is the programming language of instruction.

Student groups complete a one-term, data-science project that addresses an instructor-approved chemical engineering challenge. The project may be an original research idea; related to work by a research group at the Institute; an entry in a relevant national/regional contest; a response to an industry relationship; or other meaningful opportunity. There is no lecture, but students participate in weekly progress updates. A student may not select a project too similar to research completed to fulfill requirements for ChE 80 or ChE 90 abc.

An introduction to the physics that govern the structure and dynamics of polymeric liquids, and to the physical basis of characterization methods used in polymer science. The course emphasizes the scaling aspects of the various physical properties. Topics include conformation of a single polymer, a chain under different solvent conditions; dilute and semi-dilute solutions; thermodynamics of polymer blends and block copolymers; polyelectrolytes; rubber elasticity; polymer gels; linear viscoelasticity of polymer solutions and melts.

The foundations of heat, mass, and momentum transfer for single and multiphase fluids will be developed. Governing differential equations; laminar flow of incompressible fluids at low and high Reynolds numbers; forced and free convective heat and mass transfer, diffusion, and dispersion. Emphasis will be placed on physical understanding, scaling, and formulation and solution of boundary-value problems. Applied mathematical techniques will be developed and used throughout the course.

Survey of heterogeneous reactions on metal and oxide catalysts. Langmuir-Hinshelwood versus Eley-Rideal reaction mechanisms. Reaction, diffusion, and heat transfer in heterogeneous catalytic systems. Characterization of porous catalysts.

The course introduces rational design and evolutionary methods for engineering functional protein and nucleic acid systems. Rational design topics include molecular modeling, positive and negative design paradigms, simulation and optimization of equilibrium and kinetic properties, design of catalysts, sensors, motors, and circuits. Evolutionary design topics include evolutionary mechanisms and tradeoffs, fitness landscapes and directed evolution of proteins. Some assignments require programming (Python is the language of instruction).

An introduction to the fundamentals and simple applications of statistical thermodynamics. Foundation of statistical mechanics; partition functions for various ensembles and their connection to thermodynamics; fluctuations; noninteracting quantum and classical gases; heat capacity of solids; adsorption; phase transitions and order parameters; linear response theory; structure of classical fluids; computer simulation methods.

An advanced course emphasizing the conceptual structure of modern thermodynamics and its applications. Review of the laws of thermodynamics; thermodynamic potentials and Legendre transform; equilibrium and stability conditions; metastability and phase separation kinetics; thermodynamics of single-component fluid and binary mixtures; models for solutions; phase and chemical equilibria; surface and interface thermodynamics; electrolytes and polymeric liquids.

This course will cover the basic principles of biological and medical imaging technologies including magnetic resonance, ultrasound, nuclear imaging, fluorescence, bioluminescence and photoacoustics, and the design of chemical and biological probes to obtain molecular information about living systems using these modalities. Topics will include nuclear spin behavior, sound wave propagation, radioactive decay, photon absorption and scattering, spatial encoding, image reconstruction, statistical analysis, and molecular contrast mechanisms. The design of molecular imaging agents for biomarker detection, cell tracking, and dynamic imaging of cellular signals will be analyzed in terms of detection limits, kinetics, and biological effects. Participants in the course will develop proposals for new molecular imaging agents for applications such as functional brain imaging, cancer diagnosis, and cell therapy.

Special courses of readings or laboratory instruction. The student should consult a member of the faculty and prepare a definite program of reading, computation, theory and/or experiment. The student must submit a summary of progress at midterm and, at the end of the quarter, a final assignment designed in consultation with the instructor. This course may be credited only once. Grading: either grades or pass/fail, as arranged with the instructor.

Offered to Ph.D. candidates in chemical engineering. Main lines of research now in progress are covered in detail in section two.