Blog entry 1 ( Week 1- Week 3 + Practical 1)

Hi folks!!! This is my first blog after three weeks of ICPD lessons.

Week 1

In the first week of lesson, my teacher did a brief introduction on himself and the module which is Introduction To Chemical Product Design (ICPD). We were then asked to form groups of five to work with for this module. My teacher then proceed to show us tuckerman's team formation model. I strongly agree with this team formation model as we really need to be comfortable with one another so that we can freely share our opinions on some things without hurting each other and also recognise each other strength and weakness which will play an important role when doing certain tasks.

Week 2

In Week 2, we were taught about the different classifications of chemical products.

Chemical products can be classified into commodities, molecular products, micro structured products and chemical devices.

• Commodities are made in large quantities and is very competitive based on price.(eg; grains, beef, oil)

• Molecular products perform a task such as curing disease and sell for much more than the cost of their ingredients. (eg; carbon dioxide absorbents)

• Micro structured products are products with specific function and are less than 100 μm. (eg; creamy thick texture of ice cream)

• Chemical devices are miniature processes which accomplish a particular chemical transformation and provides convenience.

Week 3

In week 3, we were supposed to come out with a chemical device that uses chemical engineering principles and address a specific issue. My group and i started to brainstorm on what chemical device we can work on. We came out with some ideas initially but it was more towards mechanical engineering device then a chemical engineering device. After cracking our heads for a long time, we came out of a plan to build a device where we can make clarified butter.

When an individual uses a device or a product, they may experience specific problems which is also called a pain point. For me my pain point was when i had a dell laptop for years and then it started to glitch, slowed down pretty fast and could not connect to the internet. That frustrated me a lot when i had important things to be done or when i use it to watch my soccer matches and it kept pausing itself which ultimately got to my nerves and i eventually bought a computer.

We then completed our DCHE Digital Fabrication Safety Quiz as we are not allowed into the labs if we do not complete.

Practical 1

My group and I did our first practical on Brewing coffee, Reverse engineering and Air lift pump.

• Part 1 (Brewing Coffee)

• Part 2 (Reverse Engineering)

• Part 3 (Air lift pump)

For the first part of the experiment, my group was assigned to brew coffee using coffee beans with the coffee machine given. We were able to collect the necessary data we needed with help of the procedure given to us.

For the second part of the experiment,

it was pretty interesting as we discover how does a coffee maker actually produces coffee by dismantling it. On the right, the picture shows the bottom of the coffee maker once we dismantled it. My takeaway from that lesson was that not all the water in the pot is being converted into steam and the check valve which is the one-way valve is installed to prevent the water from flowing back.

For the last part of the experiment which was the air lift pump, we had to perform an experiment to determine the relationship between submergence ratio and pump flow rate.I found out that as submergence ratio increase, the higher the flow rate of the water. The more the pipe was placed underwater ,the more amount of liquid is able to be at the discharge.

Reflecting In the first three weeks of the Introduction to Chemical Product Design (ICPD) module i understood what does chemical engineering actually means. It is indeed one of the most diverse and versatile disciplines. In this module, i believe that i am able to apply a range of ideation techniques and ideas selection methods to create a chemical product design according to customer needs.

to be continued...