Progress in reforming chemical engineering education.

Three successful historical reforms of chemical engineering education were the triumph of chemical engineering over industrial chemistry, the engineering science revolution, and Engineering Criteria 2000. Current attempts to change teaching methods have relied heavily on dissemination of the results of engineering-education research that show superior student learning with active learning methods. Although slow dissemination of education research results is probably a contributing cause to the slowness of reform, two other causes are likely much more significant.

Design of pseudo-simulated moving bed process with multi-objective optimization for the separation of a ternary mixture: linear isotherms.

Pseudo-SMB, often called "J-O process", is a modified SMB process to completely separate a ternary mixture with two discrete steps per one cycle. For improved separation, two new design parameters, the position of step 1 (chi(S1)) and the number of port switches during step 2 (n(SMB)), were introduced. A multi-objective optimization method was used to optimize the operating conditions of the pseudo-SMB process with four average zone flow-rate ratios for one cycle.

Optimized design of recycle chromatography to isolate intermediate retained solutes in ternary mixtures: Langmuir isotherm systems.

Batch chromatography with a recycle stream is a popular and simple technique to separate a single target component in a complex mixture with moderate operating conditions. Design of recycle chromatography depends on the retention behaviors of the mixture components. In this work, four nucleosides were considered as solutes.