Chemical Engineering
 

ChemE 462 - Application of Chemical Engineering
Principles to Environmental Problems

Course Description

Credits: 3.  Environmental problems in chemical engineering.  Team taught; topics vary from year to year.  Includes:  geo-media, flow and dispersion through porous media, water flow in dry soils, chemistry of radioactive waste, in situ site cleanup, ex situ site cleanup, colloid and surface science.  Offered: Sp.

Designation

 Elective.

Prerequisites

CHEM E 330 - Transport Processes I.

Textbook

Hazardous Waste Management, 2nd Ed, by M. D. Lagrega, Phillip L. Buckingham, J. C. Evans, and The Environmental Resources Management Group, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 2001.

References:
Environmental Radioactivity, Third Ed., Merril Eisenbud, Academic Press, Inc., N.Y., 1987

Course Objectives

 To equip chemical engineering students with the tools, background, and perspectives necessary to address current environmental problems, with special emphasis on the problems of the Pacific Northwest.

Topics Covered
  1. Radioactivity, Sources, Dose (natural and manmade), risk (2 weeks).
  2. Toxic Fate: Compartment models in organisms and ecosystem (1 week).
  3. Toxic Fate: plume models in enviroment (1 weeks).
  4. Toxicology - dose-response relationships and ecotoxicology (1 week).
  5. Pollution prevention and Green Engineering (1 week).
  6. Bioremediation and biochemical processes (~1 week).
  7. Quantitative risk assessment (1 class).
  8. Regional case studies - Hanford, pulp and paper, oil refineries, aerospace industry (~5 classes).
  9. Tests (2 classes).
Class schedule:

Three one-hour classes per week.
Contributions of Course to meeting the Professional Component:

Engineering
Design content
Relationship of Course to Program Outcomes:

(a) an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering

(e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems

(f)  An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.

(h)  The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context.

(j)    A knowledge of contemporary issues related to safety and the environment.
Prepared by:

Barbara Krieger-Brockett , Date: May 17, 2007