Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering

Book excerpt: The goal of this textbook is to provide first-year engineering students with a firm grounding in the fundamentals of chemical and bioprocess engineering. However, instead of being a general overview of the two topics, Fundamentals of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering will identify and focus on specific areas in which attaining a solid competency is desired. This strategy is the direct result of studies showing that broad-based courses at the freshman level often leave students grappling with a lot of material, which results in a low rate of retention. Specifically, strong emphasis will be placed on the topic of material balances, with the intent that students exiting a course based upon this textbook will be significantly higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis and synthesis, evaluation, creation) relating to material balances. In addition, this book also provides students with a highly developed ability to analyze problems from the material balances perspective, which leaves them with important skills for the future. The textbook consists of numerous exercises and their solutions. Problems are classified by their level of difficulty. Each chapter has references and selected web pages to vividly illustrate each example. In addition, to engage students and increase their comprehension and rate of retention, many examples involve real-world situations.