Incorporation of Sustainability Education into the Ammonia Synthesis Process Design of the Chemical Engineering Senior Design Course

Abstract Sustainability has become a key subject in chemical engineering (ChE) practice, largely due to the challenges such as natural resource depletion, greenhouse gas emission, economic globalization, increasingly stringent environmental regulation, etc. To incorporate the concept into ChE education, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has listed sustainability as a crucial element in engineering curricula and stated that "Engineering programs must demonstrate that their students attain an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs within realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability". The senior capstone process design course is a key educational component to fulfill the goal, as it could incorporate subjects such as sustainable resources, biomass, energy efficiency, design standards and regulations, process safety, etc. In this paper, three approaches have been implemented into the Process Synthesis and Design II to address the challenges in sustainability education: (1) introduce the wind-based water electrolysis technology into ammonia synthesis design, in addition to the traditional CF-Braun technology, (2) extend the techno-economic analysis to incorporate emission penalty, renewable resource credit, transportation cost, modular manufacturing discount, as well as safety/control concerns, and (3) invite industrial experts to the final presentation and review the design from various aspects. After two years implementation, it has demonstrated that the students could gain the insights of the new sustainable process technologies more effectively. By comparing the designs with extended assessment method, the students could study the pros and cons in a broader scope with quantitative results. Introducing the industrial review panel would help the students to gain experience and increase their visibility to the job market. As a result, the new teaching efforts have fulfilled the ABET's requirements and been highly evaluated by the students' evaluation and reviewers' comments.