School Talk - Any Examples I Can Use?

Hi,

I'm giving a talk in a few weeks time to a school chemistry class (17 yr olds) on Chemical Engineering as a career choice !

Has anybody got any good ideas on practical examples of Chemical Engineering practice that I can relate back to basic chemistry? Particularly I'm after examples of a class exersise or experiment that I can get the students to do that would illustrate basic Chem Eng principles, and help me get across what the profession is all about!

Thanks in advance for your ideas !

David.

David,

Depending on what they have learned thus far regarding chemistry, I might use an example of scale up. Not that all chemical engineers do scale up, but it encompasses a lot of ChE principles. I always think about a product designed in the lab. In order to make the product in mass quantities, the size of the process has to be increased by orders of magnitude. A chemical engineer has the skills to design the larger process. You could talk about things like heat transfer and saving energy, making the process more efficient, controlling things like emissions, processing waste, cost optimization, separating the product from the waste, waste reduction, etc. If it were me I'd think of some examples that were very basic so that they could get the general idea. Maybe you could think of things around the house that encompassed these principles so that they could grasp the concepts and show how ChE principles might have been used in their design. Things like a hot water heater, oven, refrigerator, furnace, water softerner, stove, etc could be used to show basic principles.

As for a practical example, I'd ask the teacher about experiments that they've done. Anything with reaction rates, heat capacity, ideal gas law, solubility could be used with your example and how it could be related to ChE.

I'm not sure if this will be much help but I thought I'd throw my two cents in. Good luck keeping the attention of 17 year olds, I can remember how difficult it was to keep my attention in those days.

Good Luck, I'm sure you'll do well.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your help - the talk went well in the end.

The students had just covered the Haber process for ammonia manufacture, so I was able to talk around the economics of that a bit (balancing equilibrium & reaction yields vs operating costs etc). Managed to get bits in about waste management and heat transfer etc. like you suggested, so thanks very much.

David.