Unit Operations Lab
The world-class Unit Operations Lab offers a 6,500-square-foot, multistory learning area, making it one of the largest pilot-scale educational facilities dedicated to chemical processing. The facility includes two pilot-scale experiments: a three-story distillation column and a two-story batch reactor. Students work in the lab as part of the chemical engineering capstone experience, gaining exposure to the primary unit operations and the instrumentation, control, and process management technologies common to the multifaceted chemical process industries. In addition to performing traditional experiments on heat exchange, drying, filtration, separations, and fluid flow, students also study reaction kinetics, biochemical processes, membranes, and polymer processing.
Contact: Jeana Collins
Location: Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building Basement; Control Room, 107
Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering Laboratory
Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building 103
The Fundamentals of Chemical Engineering junior-level course, which is required for
all chemical engineering majors, is taught in this space. This lab introduces students
to basic laboratory methods and instrumentation used in the measurement of fluid flow,
heat transfer, and mass transfer. Lab activities include methods of statistical data
analysis, experimental design, principles of measurement and instrumentation, and
presentation of data.
Process Control Laboratory
Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building 103 (same room as Fundamentals Lab)
In this lab, students create a feedback process control loop. First they learn to
convert low-level voltage signals from process instrumentation into a measured value
in engineering units. The instrument signal is then filtered and passed on to a feedback
controller. The feedback controller is programmed to control a regulatory valve position
that maintains the physical process at a desired state or level.
Bioprocess Engineering Laboratory
Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building 205
Provides an integrated biological-process laboratory experience, including fermentation
with downstream bioseparation, for the production of a purified product of significant
commercial interest.