Graduate Studies
Masters of Engineering Projects
The purpose of the Masters of Engineering Project is to demonstrate the knowledge acquired in the M. Eng. Program in terms of an application which, utilizes the appropriate chemical engineering sciences and/or technologies. A discussion of the economic benefit of the project is also recommended.
Early in the fall term, each M. Eng. candidate will be provided with an information packet describing the potential projects available in their chosen area of concentration. The students may select one of the projects in the packet or may suggest an alternative project if they so desire.
Each student must present a project proposal to their Project Sponsor and receive approval to proceed. The form of the project proposal is shown below.
Students will tentatively select a project by November 1. Project selection will be finalized no later than December 1. More than one student may work on a project in a team situation with the consent of the Project Sponsor.
Each student or group of students must meet with their Project Sponsor at the start of the project and present a project execution plan generally following the format given below. The student(s) and the Project Sponsor will mutually agree to the Project Execution Plan.
As a minimum, students will meet with their Project Sponsor at each of the milestones described in the project execution plan. At these meetings the student(s) and the project sponsor should discuss progress to date, work to be accomplished before the next milestone, estimate of effort to complete the work, potential areas of concern which might impact completion and any outstanding issues left over from previous meetings.
Deliverables
The specific Deliverables that comprise the M.Eng. Project are as follows:
Project Proposal
The project proposal should include the following:
- Statement of background and present situation
- Statement of problem including why this proposed work could lead to an improvement over current technology or practice.
- Economic drivers and the potential economic advantages where applicable.
- Statement of methodology to solve problem
- Statement of factors defining success
Project Execution Plan
The project execution plan should include the following:
- Project Proposal
- Description of work plan
- Milestone Schedule
- Resources required
- Draft Table of Contents of Final Report
Synopsis of Projects
A synopsis of possible projects is shown below:
Potable Water Recovery from Humid Air
There are many parts of the world where potable water is scarce and the air temperature and the humidity are both high. In many cases these areas do not have well developed infrastructures and thus potable water produced by multi-effect evaporation or reverse osmosis desalination must be brought over long distances from the production site to the consumer. This is frequently not a viable option.
It has been suggested that small potable water supply systems could be put in place that would recover water from the atmosphere by condensation from the ambient air. It has further been suggested that the chilling system would use ammonia absorption or some such similar system that required little or no mechanical energy and might take advantage of solar thermal power to supply some of the energy to run the chilling system.
Your task is to develop a standalone system based on recovery of water from humid air that would produce potable water for a village of 1000 with minimal external energy supply.
Refinery Modeling
A comprehensive refinery model has been under development for several years. This model is still rudimentary and does not reflect current US product quality requirements. It is also not all that user friendly.
The task will be to upgrade the model to make it representative of current product market conditions, to add ethanol blending to gasoline and to make it transparently user friendly. A copy of the model and the instructions for use can be found on Blackboard.
An Oxygen Based Approach the Claus Process
Hydrogen sulfide is a byproduct of natural gas processing and petroleum refining. The hydrogen sulfide is converted to liquid sulfur via the Claus Process. In the Claus Process, the hydrogen sulfide in burned in air to produce a mix of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide.
The initial reaction occurs in a combustion chamber and about 60% of the hydrogen sulfide is converted. The reaction mass is cooled and liquid sulfur precipitates from the reaction mass and is removed. The remaining reaction mass is reheated and passed over a catalyst bed where approximately 60% of the remaining hydrogen sulfide is converted to sulfur. The reaction mass is cooled, liquid sulfur condenses and is removed. This catalytic step is repeated a second time and the reaction mass now contains about 3% of the sulfur fed to the process.
At this point the gas stream is so dilute in sulfur that the partial pressure of the sulfur is equivalent to the vapor pressure of solid sulfur. This precludes any further removal by condensation. At this point the reaction mass is fed to another process called the SCOT Process which removes the remaining 2+% sulfur. The SCOT Process is equal in capital cost to the Claus Process.
A possible alternative to the SCOT Process would be to feed the Claus Process with an oxygen rich stream obtained by passing air across a membrane that would separate oxygen and nitrogen. There would therefore be far less total mols of gas and the partial pressure of sulfur would be higher.
Full details of the Claus Process may be found in Chapter 22 of the GPSA Handbook.
The objective of the project is a reaction engineering study to determine the viability of this concept. The study should recommend the appropriate level of oxygen enrichment, the design basics of the new reaction scheme and some idea of how the cost might vary from a conventional Claus Process.
Salt Water Algae as a Source of Bio Fuels
Cellera Corporation is investigating the large scale on-shore cultivation of algal colonies. Some specific algal types are fairly high in lipids. The process that seems most promising at this point is high temperature hydrolysis of the algal mass, producing free fatty acids, glycerol and denatured cell mass.
The free fatty acids can be converted to the methyl ester and be used as a replacement for petroleum derived diesel. This is attractive firstly because all petroleum diesel is presently either imported or produced from imported crude, and secondly because the methyl ester fuel is easily bio-degradable relative to petroleum diesel.
The large residue of cellular material which will probably be best converted to incremental energy by bio-digestion.
The objective of this project is to determine the most cost effective method to win free fatty acids and glycerol from the algae. The project should also evaluate the best value recovery scheme for the residual cellular material.
Compressed Air as a Means of Energy Storage
A possible solution to these problems is to compress air at the point of power generation and to replace the compression section of the typical power generating gas turbine with compressed air delivered by pipeline. Compressing the air to a higher pressure than needed by the gas turbine will allow volume to be stored in the pipeline as “line pack” and to be readily available to the gas turbine as electrical demand swings.
The project should look at the facilities required to make this a viable idea and to produce an estimate of capital and operating costs for the facilities which translate back into a cost per kilowatt for the supplied power.
Recovery of Hydrocarbons in a Depleted Producing Field by in-situ Gasification
Using oxygen to convert coal seams into synthesis gas by partial combustion has been a demonstrated but not commercialized technology for many years. Since depleted oil and gas fields may contain more than half the total hydrocarbon originally in place in the formation, it may be possible to recover a significant amount of the energy potential of the hydrocarbons in place by methods and technology similar to Underground Coal Gasification. This project will require a fair amount of geological knowledge and so might best be done with a partner from Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Throughput Monoclonal Antibody Formulation and Stabilization
Most monoclonal antibodies are administered intravenously over long timeframes. A number of pharmaceutical companies would like to administer monoclonal antibodies subcutaneously so that patients can self-administer their antibody medications at home, much like insulin is administered today. The problem is that to reduce the injection volumes of the antibodies, the proteins must be formulated at very high concentrations. Because the kinetics of antibody aggregation is a function of concentration, a formulation goal of ~100mg antibody/mL is very challenging. The focus of this project is to use combinatorial, high throughput formulation methods to discover new antibody formulations with the capability of stabilizing monoclonal antibodies at high concentrations. The investigators will not only learn the principles of protein formulation, but also will become experts in robotic liquid handling and the analysis of proteins (dynamic light scattering and SDS page protein gel analysis).
A Breakthrough Sustainable Energy System
Heat generation systems suffer from poor energy/heat conversion yields. This project focuses on the development of a prototype system that approaches 100% conversion yields, potentially leading to a system that can sustain hundreds of degrees Celsius with very low energy input. The application of the prototype is potentially extensive. The research team will learn engineering principles of heat transfer and physical principles of electromagnetic radiation and its application to molecular vibration heating. The resulting prototype, to be built by the research team will serve as the potential basis for a new sustainable energy company.