Active Stream

Chemical Engineering

Optimize reactions, design plants, and synthesize new materials.

Total Projects

Estimated Time

40+ Hours

Difficulty

Intermediate to Advanced

Curriculum

Project 1

Project 1: The Coffee Extraction Engine

Master mass transfer, diffusion, and kinetics by building a physics-based coffee brewing simulator.

Project 2

Project 2: Rocket Fuel Plant Designer

Design a Sabatier reactor system to produce methane fuel on Mars using stoichiometry and yield calculations.

2.1 The Reaction (Stoichiometry)

2.1.1 The Sabatier Process 2.1.2 From Moles to Mass 2.1.3 Limiting Reactant 2.1.4 Conversion & Yield 2.1.5 Coding the Reaction Class

2.2 The Reactor (Design)

2.2.1 Space Velocity 2.2.2 Catalyst Loading 2.2.3 Pressure Drop (Ergun Equation)2.2.4 Thermal Management 2.2.5 Coding the Reactor Simulator

2.3 The Separation (Water Removal)

2.3.1 The Condenser 2.3.2 Membrane Separation 2.3.3 The Recycle Concept 2.3.4 Overall vs Single-Pass Conversion 2.3.5 Coding the Separator

2.4 The Full Plant Simulation

2.4.1 Iterative Solvers 2.4.2 Convergence Criteria 2.4.3 Mass Balance Check 2.4.4 The Purge 2.4.5 Coding the Full Plant

2.5 Storage & Safety

2.5.1 Liquefaction 2.5.2 Tank Sizing 2.5.3 Boil-off 2.5.4 HAZOP Analysis 2.5.5 Capstone: Mission Go/No-Go

Project 3

Project 3: The Ideal Gas Refinery

Build a flash separator simulator to split hydrocarbon mixtures using thermodynamics and phase equilibria.

3.1 Thermodynamics Basics

3.1.1 The Ideal Gas Law 3.1.2 Partial Pressure 3.1.3 Phase Diagrams 3.1.4 Vapor Pressure (Antoine)3.1.5 Coding the Component Class

3.2 Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium (VLE)

3.2.1 Raoult's Law 3.2.2 Bubble Point Calculation 3.2.3 Dew Point Calculation 3.2.4 Flash Calculation (Rachford-Rice)3.2.5 Coding the Flash Solver

3.3 Equations of State (EOS)

3.3.1 Why Ideal Gas Fails 3.3.2 Peng-Robinson EOS 3.3.3 Fugacity 3.3.4 Coding the Cubic Solver 3.3.5 Using an EOS Library

3.4 The Refinery Simulation

3.4.1 The Feed Stream 3.4.2 The Flash Drum 3.4.3 Dew Point Control 3.4.4 Optimizing Pressure 3.4.5 Capstone: The Full PFD

Project 4

Project 4: Bio-Reactor Simulator

Model bacterial growth and optimize ethanol production using the Monod equation and chemostat dynamics.

4.1 Microbial Growth

4.1.1 Exponential Growth 4.1.2 The Monod Equation 4.1.3 Yield Coefficients 4.1.4 Batch Simulation 4.1.5 Coding the Bioreactor Class

4.2 The Chemostat

4.2.1 Continuous Culture 4.2.2 Washout 4.2.3 Productivity 4.2.4 Product Formation (Ethanol)4.2.5 Capstone: Optimization

Project 5

Project 5: Distillation Column Commander

Design a binary distillation column using the McCabe-Thiele method to separate ethanol and water.

5.1 VLE Curves

5.1.1 The x-y Diagram 5.1.2 Azeotropes

5.2 Operating Lines

5.2.1 Rectifying Section (Top)5.2.2 Stripping Section (Bottom)

5.3 McCabe-Thiele Method

5.3.1 Stepping Off Stages 5.3.2 The Feed Tray

5.4 Efficiency & Real Trays

5.4.1 Murphree Efficiency

5.5 Capstone: Column Designer

5.5.1 Full Column Design

Project 6

Project 6: Heat Exchanger Network

Design heat exchangers and optimize energy recovery networks using Pinch Analysis.

6.1 Heat Transfer Basics

6.1.1 Conduction (Fourier's Law)6.1.2 Convection (Newton's Law)

6.2 Double Pipe Exchanger

6.2.1 Counter vs Parallel Flow

6.3 LMTD Method

6.3.1 Log Mean Temp Difference

6.5 Network Synthesis (Pinch)

6.5.1 Composite Curves

Project 7

Project 7: Pipeline Flow Solver

Calculate pressure drops and size pumps for complex piping networks using fluid mechanics.

7.1 Fluid Basics

7.1.1 Reynolds Number

7.3 Friction Losses

7.3.1 Darcy-Weisbach Equation

7.4 Pump Sizing

7.4.1 Pump Power

Project 8

Project 8: Chemical Equilibrium Solver

Predict the final composition of reacting mixtures by minimizing Gibbs Free Energy.

8.1 Gibbs Free Energy

8.1.1 Delta G

8.2 Equilibrium Constant

8.2.1 Calculating Keq

8.3 Extent of Reaction

8.3.1 Solving for Extent

Project 9

Project 9: Process Control PID Tuner

Simulate dynamic systems and tune PID controllers to maintain stable operation.

9.1 Process Dynamics

9.1.1 First Order Systems

9.3 PID Controller

9.3.1 The PID Algorithm

9.4 Tuning

9.4.1 Ziegler-Nichols

Project 10

Project 10: Plant Economics Analyzer

Evaluate the financial viability of chemical plants using CAPEX, OPEX, and NPV analysis.

10.1 Capital Cost (CAPEX)

10.1.1 Equipment Costing 10.1.2 Lang Factor

10.2 Operating Cost (OPEX)

10.2.1 Utilities & Labor

10.3 Profitability Analysis

10.3.1 Net Present Value (NPV)

10.4 Sensitivity Analysis

10.4.1 Monte Carlo Simulation