(767e) Teaching Chemical Product Design

E L Cussler and G D Moggridge

Universities of Minnesota and Cambridge

Since its inception around a century ago, the chemical industry has focussed on the manufacture of commodities.  A commodity chemical, produced at over 1000 tons per year, is sold into a world market where the products are differentiated by price.  Benzene, polypropylene and titanium dioxide are examples.  This industry had its Golden Age from 1940 to 1980, with growth equivalent to that of the modern software industry. 

More recently, as market growth slowed, chemical companies have moved towards higher value added products. These higher value added products, often produced at less than 10 tons per year, are often made of ingredients which cost a tenth or less of their selling price.  They gain their value from a molecular or microstructure which gives them better performance.  However, many chemical professionals are trained largely, if not exclusively, to serve the commodity chemical industry. These professionals now focus largely on the traditional question, “How should we make this commodity product?”  These professionals must also consider what is increasingly the more relevant question, “What high value added products are we going to make?”

This paper describes teaching chemical product design, and so attempts to fill part of the educational gap between the commodity chemical industry and the new, more fragmented, high value added chemical product industry. Filling this gap has two parts.  First, we present a four-step template for chemical product design of customer needs, product ideas, selection of the best idea, and product manufacturing.  Second, we explore which step in this template is most important for which kind of product.  As expected, the manufacturing step is the most important for commodities.  Less obviously, the selection step is the most important for many non-commodity products.

We teach product design using two different strategies.  Sometimes, we teach a separate course of lectures and smaller recitations, where the specific problems are discussed.  The students develop ideas as teams, but write six to ten individual reports.  Alternatively, we teach twelve classes which supplement to chemical process design.  In this stategy, each student writes three individual essays.  Both of these strategies work better for us than imitating the process design course.

We are interested that different experiences lead to trouble with different parts of product design.  Inexperienced students are wonderful at generating new product ideas, but they have trouble making estimates which let them quickly select among possible alternative products.  Experienced chemists and engineers have no trouble making quick estimates and sensible selections, but they are less effective at suggesting new ideas.  Both groups have benefited from and enjoyed their efforts to get better at chemical product design.  We challenge you, either as a professor or as a student: while this material is hard to teach and hard to learn, it can be the most satisfying part of your education.  Have fun with your designs.