STRATEGIES FOR CHEMICAL PROCESS DESIGN: A SUSTAINABILITY-BASED APPROACH

Team Strategies for Engineering Design" is a third-year undergraduate course in our chemical engineering curriculum where student teams develop leadership and management skills while applying decision-making methodologies to process engineering design.Typical deliverables for this course include process flow and piping & instrumentation diagrams centred on developing processes under safety and environmental considerations.This work describes the design and implementation of our revamped version of this course, which consists of four (4) engineering pillars: (i) process description and heat & material balance, (ii) process drawings, (iii) sizing and safety, and (iv) circular economy.Sustainability is discussed in all deliverables and tasks, with a special emphasis on minimizing waste and energy consumption, complying with environmental regulations, performing plant risk assessments, and discussing life cycle assessments.Data-based modelling for prediction and optimization is also taught as a complementary tool for traditional process simulation approaches.Moreover, the corresponding chemical processes are linked to a vertically integrated framework of our curriculum, which combines core engineering concepts and process design around biodiesel plants in different courses of our program.Finally, the teams submit a "strategies report" (engineering logbook), where all engineering strategies to achieve the process engineering goals are summarized and discussed.With this revamped version, we expect to guide students to assume responsibility for designing sustainable chemical processes while enhancing students' career readiness.