| The National Science Foundation's undergraduate curriculum reform project for chemical engineering has an overall objective of developing a web-based educational resource for teaching and learning. One aspect of this project involves the development of Interlinked Curriculum Components (ICC's), each of which would focus on specific application areas or skills. The ICC module developed here is part of a multi-part module on microchemical systems, and introduces students to the basics of mixing in a single microchannel and the performance of catalytic microreactors. COMSOL Multiphysics is used as the numerical engine to simulate the effect of various internals on fluid mixing in a microchannel, and to analyze the performance of various catalytic microreactor configurations involving fluid flow, heat transfer, and species transport. The systems that were studied include a rectangular microchannel with and without internals, steady-state axial heat and mass transfer in a tubular microreactor with multiple solutions, a T-shaped catalytic microreactor, and selective catalytic reduction of NOx with a porous catalyst. The output from these models will be linked to a user interface that provides 2-D and 3-D visualization of the model simulations. When completed, this module will allow students to work through a series of exercises involving catalytic microreactors along with quantitative measures of their knowledge learned through pre and post-testing [1]. |
