Integrated project

Duration

10h Th, 270h Proj., 1d FW

Number of credits

Lecturer

Marie-Noëlle Dumont, Nathalie Job, Angélique Léonard, Grégoire Léonard, Andreas Pfennig, Dominique Toye

Coordinator

N...

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

Students will study a CO2 re-use project for a sugar and ethanol production plant. The integrated project will be sub-divided into 3 parts.
First, students will identify and quantify available resources and demands. They will identify suitable chemical engineering processes to achieve the deployment of the technology and they will retrieve process balances and efficiencies. They will propose a global energy scheme, with quantification of materials and energy flows.
In the second part, they will study with more details the critical physical unit operations that assemble to give the processes they identified in the first part. In particular, they will have a closer look at kinetic phenomena, and they will design, model and evaluate efficiency and balances of reactors, process upstream and downstream sections (reactants preparation and products purification respectively). They will also propose a conceptual model of the global flowsheet, evaluate the heat integration potential, and develop flowsheet convergence strategies.
In the last part, the students will implement the conceptual models developed in the second part into a simulation tool such as Aspen Plus and they will evaluate the process efficiency and balances. They will compare the results of their model to the first estimates realized during the 1st project part.
In addition to the technical skills, students will receive support and coaching from the PSGO (Psychologie Sociale des Groupes et Organisations) in order to improve their soft skills such as work in team and positioning within the team structure.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The goal of the integrated project is to promote the acquisition of soft skills and to consolidate technical knowledge by integrating and linking chemical engineering disciplines usually taught separately.
Technical skills:

• Acquire critical thinking and feeling for orders of magnitude typical of engineers to address complex and multi-disciplinary topics => Part I
• Consolidate technical knowledge by integrating and linking chemical engineering disciplines taught in other classes of the degree => Part II&III
• Develop knowledge about current hot topics in chemical engineering and increase the awareness about the role of science & technology in society.

• Ability to work in large groups (min 5 students, random selection of members)
• Management of project and deadlines
• Writing of technical reports in English, with written feed-back from teachers after each report
• Communication to non-scientific audience: redaction and publication of a general audience report

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

See list of pre-requisite and co-requisite classes. Basics of chemical engineering (transport phenomena, physical unit operation design, catalysis, process modelling ...) are required.
Pre-requisite courses : CHIM0286, CHIM9306
Co-requisite courses : CHIM0022, CHIM0695, CHIM0696, CHIM0009, CHIM0081, CHIM9299, CHIM9300, CHIM0697, CHIM0080, CHIM9277
 

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

The mentoring will consist in weekly progress reports in the presence of the teaching team. Lead by 2 different students each week, the discussion (no pre-define format, it can be a presentation, a round-table discussion, ...) will present the progress reports and last for maximal 45 minutes. After that, the teaching team will deliberate for 15 minutes and send a written feedback about the achieved results and/or methodology.
In addition, all the year long, meetings with experts (from industry and/or academia) is encouraged. It will be first organized by the teaching team, but some implication from students in the organization of such meetings is expected.
At the end of each part, an intermediary report (max 30 pages + 10 pages of annexes) will be delivered by students. This reported will be presented as well (max 30' presentation). Technical and soft skills feedbacks will be provided by teachers and PSGO at the end of each part.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Presentations by academic and industrial experts, workshop, written and oral feedback on deliverables, round tables, office hours.

Recommended or required readings

Kick-off presentations and presentations by experts will be uploaded on e-campus. Other literature :

• M. Douglas : Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes, New York: McGraw-Hill (1988).
• R. Turton et al, Analysis, Synthesis and Design of Chemical Processes, Prentice Hall 2013, ISBN 0-13-570565-7

Assessment methods and criteria

The grade will include evaluation of technical and soft skills. The technical assessment is common to the group and is based exclusively on the 3 written reports and 3 oral presentations delivered at the end of each project part. The evaluation grid of the previous year will be communicated to students at the project kick-off to give an idea about how the evaluation may be performed (not binding).
Soft skills assessment will evaluate each student's involvement in the project. It will focus on the student's efforts to improve his/her competences related to the good working of the group towards the achievement of group's objectives. The grade will include auto- and peer-evaluation by group members at the end of each project part. Failing to achieve 10/20 for this assessment will result in project failure.
Student's individual grade will result from the group technical evaluation and the individual soft skills grade.Feedback on the written English language will be offered by the ISLV.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

1st quadrimester:
Deadline for 1st part report is 27/11, 8.00. Oral presentation of the 1st part will take place on 04/12, 14.00.

Contacts

Prof. Grégoire Léonard. g.leonard@ulg.ac.be
Dr. Marie-Noëlle Dumont. mn.dumont@ulg.ac.be
Prof. Nathalie Job, Nathalie.Job@ulg.ac.be
Prof. Angélique Léonard, A.Leonard@ulg.ac.be
Prof. Andreas Pfennig, Andreas.Pfennig@ulg.ac.be
Prof. Dominique Toye, Dominique.Toye@ulg.ac.be