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Session 2003-1313

SPARKING Students Interest in Electrochemical Engineering

Robert P. Hesketh, Stephanie Farrell, and C. S. Slater Department of Chemical Engineering Rowan University 201 Mullica Hill Road Glassboro, New Jersey 08028-1701

Abstract A new course in Electrochemical Engineering was given at Rowan University using an inductive teaching format. This format consisted of incorporating electrochemical engineering and electrochemistry experiments into the lecture. For this class we used an inductive presentation style of the material which started with an experiment. If an experiment was not possible then the results of an experiment where shown or a demonstration was given. Next a lecture was presented on the material using the experimental results followed by a presentation of the theory.

Introduction

There is a tremendous potential for the use of electrochemical engineering in growth areas such as fuel cells, bio-sensors, electrochemical sensors and batteries. In addition many new green chemical reactions are being proposed to replace traditional organic reactions. New environmental separation processes are being used for the removal of metals from wastewater. In addition to these new processes, traditional areas of chemicals production that have a major market share, such as that of the chlor-alkali industry, need to have further improvements made by process engineers to remain competitive. All of these areas have a high potential growth and chemical engineers will have a large impact in these areas.

Electrochemical engineering tends to be perceived as relatively daunting course in chemical engineering. Students see topics using concepts that are very unfamiliar. A typical chemical engineering student will have seen some concepts related to ions in their chemistry courses such as the dissociation of ions and they will have balanced a redox reaction, but this is typically done in the freshman year and is covered near the end of the chemistry course. Since most electrochemical engineering courses are given as electives in the senior year the student is very unfamiliar with this material.

The electrochemical engineering course developed a Rowan University has been designed to introduce various topics of electrochemical engineering through an integration of experiments, projects, homework and lectures.

Current Electrochemical Engineering Education within Chemical Engineering

In many cases aspects of electrochemical engineering have been regulated to subsections of standard texts such as in Perry’s 7th Edition of the Chemical Engineering Handbook. A relatively small section on fuels cells under the title, Electrochemical Energy Conversion (6 pages), and then another section on electrophoresis and electrofiltration in the Alternative Solid/liquid Separations (8 pages). In the index sections on electrodialysis (6 pages),

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Farrell, S., & Hesketh, R., & Slater, C. S. (2003, June), Sparking Students' Interest In Electrochemical Engineering Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--12194