Duration
10h Th, 270h Proj., 1d FW
Number of credits
| Master of Science (MSc) in Chemical and Materials Engineering | 10 crédits |
Lecturer
Marie-Noëlle Dumont, Nathalie Job, Angélique Léonard, Grégoire Léonard, Andreas Pfennig, Dominique Toye
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
All year long, with partial in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
Students will study an industrial process centered on the manufacture of a chemical as an illustration of integrated project. Students will work in groups of maximum 10 students on topics selected by the teaching team. This project will be sub-divided into 5 main parts:
Part 1 : Mass balances, short literature review, consolidation of results in groups and project planning
First, students will individually study mass balances of the process, based on literature assumptions provided by the teachers. They will use spreadsheet and calculation software (Matlab, Excel) to build stream tables for the studied chemical process. They will also perform an individual literature review in order to get a good overview of their process. In total, this part should last 1 month.
Part 2: detailed models for thermodynamics; kinetics & reactors; separation units
Students will work in sub-groups on specific chemical engineering tasks, e.g. reaction engineering and kinetics, separation engineering, thermodynamic modeling and energy balances. In this part, students will study with more details the critical physical unit operations that assemble to give the manufacturing processes. Based on justified assumptions, they will build robust simulation models that they need to validate. This part will require interaction between the sub-groups as the expected models are interdependent. This part will last about 2 months (October-November).
Part 3: Sensitivity studies on models and exchange of topics between groups
In the third part (running from December to February), students will switch sub-groups and will use the simulation models built in the second part in order to perform sensitivity studies to assess key process parameters and evaluate their impact on the unit operation results. They will use this opportunity to discuss about model validation.
Part 4: Process integration into one model
During this fourth part, students will build a global flowsheet of the process and optimize its topology. They will apply heat integration techniques and work towards optimization of the process operating conditions.
Part 5: extended literature review and report for general audience
Finally, in the last part, students will update their literature review and challenge the process assumptions made in the first semester (process flowsheet, operating conditions...). They will study the literature to validate these assumptions and possibly identify alternative manufacturing pathways as well as product replacement solutions. This study will consider the process in a broader society overview, including the assessment of the product environmental footprint, raw materials use, market conditions, recyclability, toxicity, cost...
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 consolidate technical knowledge and to promote the acquisition of soft skills by integrating and linking chemical engineering disciplines usually taught separately.
Technical skills:
- Consolidate technical knowledge by integrating and linking the different disciplines of chemical engineering and integrate these disciplines within one unique project.
- Acquire critical thinking and ability to challenge and validate assumptions made. This includes the acquisition of a gut feeling for orders of magnitude typical of engineers.
- Address complex and multi-disciplinary topics centered on chemical industry.
- 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 (between 6-10 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 scientific and non-scientific audience: technical presentations to teachers, and final presentation to a larger audience with general engineering background.
- Communication in English, written and oral (all group members must talk).
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Basics of chemical engineering (transport phenomena, physical unit operation design, catalysis, process modelling ...) are required. All these skills can be acquired within the Bachelor in Engineering, Chemical Engineering option, at the University of Liège.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
The project will be initiated during two kick-off meetings at the start of the semester.
After that, the mentoring will consist in weekly meetings between students and professors responsible for the different sub-tasks. Meetings arrangements will be initiated by students in sub-groups, and the minutes of each week's meetings will be uploaded to an on-line shared drive.
Each month, plenary sessions will be organized for students to present the progress of their group work (one presentation per large group) to all professors. Oral feed-back will be given by professors.
At the end of each part, an oral presentation and/or an intermediary report (format described in the assignments) will be delivered by students. At the end of each semester, it is required that all students have orally participated to at least one presentation.
Technical and soft skills feedbacks will be provided all year long by teachers and PSGO. In addition, throughout the year, expert presentations will be organized by professors, and initiatives from students to organize such meetings are encouraged.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Presentations by academic and industrial experts, workshop and group work, written and oral feedback on deliverables, face-to-face meetings with professors, plenary sessions, office hours.
Recommended or required readings
Kick-off presentations and presentations by experts 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 written reports and oral presentations delivered at the end of each project part.
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.
Student's individual grade will result from the group technical evaluation and the individual soft skills grade according to following distribution:
- 40% for global results (technical results from final reports and presentations). Group grade.
- 30% for specific tasks. Group grade.
- 15% for soft skills at group level (Presentation skills, Gantt diagram, involvement in PSGO activities). Group grade.
- 15% for soft skills at individual level: peer evaluation. Personal grade.
Feedback on the written English language may be offered by ISLV.
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
Course delivered in English. Calendar of the year will be presented at the first kick-off that takes place during the first week of the academic year. Attendance to all technical as well as soft skills events is mandatory.
Contacts
Prof. Grégoire Léonard. g.leonard@uliege.be
Dr. Marie-Noëlle Dumont. mn.dumont@uliege.be
Prof. Nathalie Job, Nathalie.Job@uliege.be
Prof. Angélique Léonard, A.Leonard@uliege.be
Prof. Andreas Pfennig, Andreas.Pfennig@uliege.be
Prof. Dominique Toye, Dominique.Toye@uliege.be
Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the May-June 2020 session
Teaching methods implemented : distance-learning
No major change expected, excepted the fact that no physical meeting will be organized. Interactions with teachers for specific sub-topics may go on on a case-by-case approche (using email or Skype meetings).
Reports and presentations will be organized as initially planned, except that presentation wil take place virtually.
PSGO activities will be adapted to support group organization during the lock-down period.
Assessment subjects
Topics covered by the Integrated projects are unchanged. Here are more details that have been sent to students regarding the most recent parts of the project:
Part 4:
In this part, we expect you to sum up the results about what we asked you in the email of 26/02, namely:
1. build a global flowsheet of the process combining the sub-models that had been done in previous parts. If necessary, this includes refining the knowledge about sub-models, possibly through sensitivity analyses and identification of key variables.
2. Continue and complete the study on catalyst initiated in part 3.
3. study the optimization of the process, including heat integration using pinch methods
4. Refine the cost evaluation of the process
5. Develop a life cycle thinking approach for your process
6. Initiate a second literature review for two purposes:
a. Compare your Aspen results with previous own results (mass balance, ...) as well as with results from literature in order to validate the efficiency of your process. Identify relevant Key Process Indicators for that (raw material efficiency, energy consumption...).
b. Identify technological alternatives to your process/product, for instance alternatives that rely less on the use of fossil feedstock. Describe technologies and potential processes. Use your results to compare and evaluate possible alternatives.
Part 5:
PArt 5 will describe the context of the project and of the technical challenge, it will present a summary of your main technical results, and it will validate these results by comparing them to the literature in this field. It will also give the final results about the cost evaluation, the LCA approach and the literature review.
Assessment methods
No significant changes due to lock-down. Some additional details have been communicated to students by email:
Part 4:
The report is due on Sunday 19/4, 23.59. This report should be max 30 pages long. This report is your last "pure technical" report. You have to include the final results to points 1 to 3 above (global flowsheet, catalyst study, process optimization). You should also include results from points 4 to 6 (cost evaluation, life cycle thinking, literature review), in order to get a feedback about them, but these points may then be further refined for the final report (part 5). As a consequence, technical details must be in the part 4 report. It is thus absolutely necessary that you provide a detailed and final flowsheet (Aspen file + PFD picture in the text report) as well as a stream table (possibly in the annex) in the report.
The presentation of PART 4 will take place on Wednesday, April 22nd at 13.30 using a virtual room. Each group will have 30 min presentation, directly followed by 45 minutes Q&A. You can decide which group wants to start. The afternoon will be concluded with a 30-min PSGO activity for each group separately.
Part 5:
The final report (part 5) is due on May 10., 23.59. This final report will be shorter (20 pages). It will describe the context of the project and of the technical challenge, it will present a summary of your main technical results, and it will validate these results by comparing them to the literature in this field. I will also give the final results about the cost evaluation, the LCA approach and the literature review. Although we do not specifically ask for this, you may think of the report as a journal article that would describe the scope and results of your integrated project. This short report should be understandable for people that have not followed you all year long, but that have a background in chemical engineering. This report will be presented orally as well on May 13 pm.
Contacts
In case you have further questions, for the new topics, here are the referent professors:
- LCA: A. Léonard
- Literature: A. Léonard, with support of all other professors
- Heat integration: M-N. Dumont
- Costs: G.Léonard + support of Mr. Pfennig & Mrs Toye for specific equipment
- PSGO activities: T. Manfredini
- General contact: G. Léonard