How We Teach: Kinetics and Reactor Design

The Survey Committee of AIChE's Education Division surveys departments in the US and Canada each fall. Kinetics and reactor design or chemical reaction engineering is the topic for Fall 2020. This paper presents results from 87 different courses representing 80 distinct institutions as well as discussion from the survey session at the AIChE Annual Meeting. Results are compared with previous surveys in 2010 and earlier. Almost all departments still require only one three-credit-hour course in kinetics and reactor design. Fogler's textbooks are still the most popular. Over 80% of courses cover topics through steady-state reactors in depth. Over 60% of courses also cover unsteady non-isothermal reactors and reaction hazards but with less depth. Over half of the courses responded that more than 50% of the homework assignments use a computer, which is a substantial increase from the survey in 2010. Exams and individual homework assignments are still the most popular assessments, but team homework and team projects are increasing. The course is used to assess the achievement of ABET Student Outcomes 1 and 2 in half of the courses. The majority of departments have laboratory exercises devoted to kinetics and reactor design in a required course, with experiments within the kinetics and reactor design courses themselves in a quarter of departments.