CHEMICAL ENGINEERING ‘ON-A-CHIP’: Capturing the Integrated Scope of Chemical Engineering in STEM Outreach

Abstract

A hands-on educational module was created to illustrate the scope of chemical engineering. Students are taught fundamental concepts that they integrate in a laboratory experience designing and fabricating a ‘plant-on-a-chip’ microfluidic device capable of continuous processing of reactive flows. Students gain insight into chemical engineering principles in the context of process scale-down, including extracting and extending reaction kinetics from bench to microfluidic-scale while accounting for the need for enhanced mixing within laminar fluid flow.