For over 50 years, the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania has offered a two-course sequence in product and process design. The Fall course, CBE 400, is a lecture course that introduces the basics of product and process design. The Spring course, CBE 459, has been devoted entirely to the solution of design problems in groups of two, three, or four students. Timely problems are provided mostly by consultants from the local chemical industry who visit the University on Tuesday afternoons to assist the students throughout the Spring semester.

For a description of the courses, see Process Design Curriculum at Penn: Adapting for the 1990's, an article prepared for the Spring 1994 issue of Chemical Engineering Education. Also, see the latest Course Syllabus, the list of Reserve Books in the Towne Library, and a web site that provides special assistance for CBE 400-459 students from the Towne Librarians .

Student Design Projects

The 2007-2008 Industrial Consultants have provided projects (2007-2008), currently being solved by 12 design groups (2007-2008) .  See the schedule of visits by the industrial consultants for the Spring 2008.  Also, see our recommendations for executing the CBE 459 design project in the Spring 2008.

Since 1978, the Melvin C. Molstad Prize has been awarded annually to the most outstanding design group in the senior class.  Also, since 2000, three of our best design groups have competed in the Engineering Alumni Design Competition.

In 1994, a report entitled Process Design Projects at Penn: 100 Problem Statements was distributed to chemical engineering departments around the world. Over 90% of the design reports prepared by student groups are available from the Penn department. Reports, dating from 1993 are available by interlibrary loan.

Teaching Tool Development

During the summer of 1994, work was begun to create a multimedia module to teach the basics of the simulation of chemical processes using the ASPEN PLUS and HYSYS simulators. An article entitled "An Interactive Approach to Teaching Steady-state Simulation of Chemical Processes" was prepared for the Computer Application in Engineering Education journal.

From 1996-2000, the two courses were upgraded in cooperation with colleagues at Princeton and Lehigh Universities and funded by the NSF Combined Research-Curriculum Development Program. For an overview of the changes, see the Project Description. Also, see the paper entitled "Experiences in Team-Teaching a Process Design Course Covering Steady-state Synthesis, Optimization, and Control."

Recently, our textbook Product and Process Design Principles: Synthesis, Analysis and Evaluation (Seider, W. D., J. D. Seader, and D. R. Lewin, Second Edition, Wiley, 2004) was published. Each copy of the textbook is packaged with a CD-ROM containing the multimedia module entitled Using Process Simulators in Chemical Engineering: A Multimedia Guide for the Core Curriculum, Version 2.0 (Lewin, D. R., et al., Wiley, 2003).

Attention Students

Students of CBE 400, click here to check the latest homework assignments and course announcements.