Dissertation
DEVELOPMENT, CHARACTERIZATION, AND ASSESSMENT OF MINIATURIZED CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION EQUIPMENT, FLUID MECHANICS, AND THERMOCHEMICAL BIOMASS CONVERSION
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/117932
Abstract
Discovery-based learning and empirically validated teaching practices have been shown to increase student learning gains and we focus on developing, characterizing, and assessing these miniaturized systems for the classroom. In this work, we outline and assess student attitudes towards the use of fluid mechanics and heat transfer units in the classroom. After this initial finding, whereby students recommend more structure in the classroom we utilize Chi’s interactive, constructive, active, passive (ICAP) hypothesis as a framework to assess learning gains of the units. Our findings show with an interactive environment students learn higher-level Bloom’s taxonomy concepts, while a passive environment favors lower level Bloom’s levels. Next, we focused on thermochemical conversion and developed a module that could display pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion. In our development, we found the necessity of a radiation shield and developed a module on heat transfer modeling and experimentation. To completely characterize the module, however, char gasification kinetic experiments needed to be completed. We ran parametric studies on temperature and pressure, utilized the Avrami model, the random pore model, the unreacted core shrinking model (UCSM), and the hybrid model to determine kinetic parameters and offer information on the mechanistic behavior of reactions. The activation energy was found to be 84.8 KJ/mol with a P_(O_2 ) order of 0.85. This reaction order close to 1 indicates adsorption is rate-controlling, with the UCSM model strongly supported as the mechanism progression, showing decreasing surface area and decreasing numbers of active sites for adsorption as the reaction proceeds associated with smaller char volumes. These systems are useful for both undergraduate and graduate engineering students who can perform simple experiments to reveal fundamental kinetic mechanisms that focus on mass transfer, adsorption and surface reaction.
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Details
- Title
- DEVELOPMENT, CHARACTERIZATION, AND ASSESSMENT OF MINIATURIZED CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION EQUIPMENT, FLUID MECHANICS, AND THERMOCHEMICAL BIOMASS CONVERSION
- Creators
- Jacqueline Burgher
- Contributors
- Bernard J Van Wie (Advisor)Steven S Saunders (Committee Member)David Thiessen (Committee Member)Manuel Garcia-Perez (Committee Member)Olusola O Adesope (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 213
- Identifiers
- 99900581422001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation