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An ae rial pho to sho wi ng Ca r neg ie-Mellon University and Sche nl ey Park.
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CARNEGIE - MELLON
DENNIS C. PRIEVE
Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
JN JUNE OF 1974, I was headed for Pittsburgh
to attend a national AIChE meeting. On my only previous trip, I flew to Pittsburgh at night to interview for a position as Assistant Professor with the Department of Chemical Engin eering at Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU). But this was :my first trip by car and I did some exploring. I found that th e absence of any regular pattern of streets and the scarcity of signs made driving in Pittsburgh an adventure. The hills of the city create such a turmoil in the network of roads that Fifth Avenue intersects Sixth A venue. Once I found it, Carnegie-Mellon's 100-acre campus turned out to be remarkably spacious for an urban university with only 4500 students and 450 faculty. That commodious feeling is enhanced by neighboring Schenley Park whose 500 acres in-
elude hiking trails, a golf course, tennis courts and a skating rink. On the academic side, I was pleasantly surprised to discover an outstanding College (Of Fine Arts here. Drama has been quite successful, with two student productions-"God- spell" and "Pippin"-becoming well known on Broadway. Other major strengths of Carnegie- Mellon University are the Graduate School of In- dustrial Administration (GSIA), the Computer Science Program, and the Engineering College. All are nationally recognized. Herb Toor, a former Head of Chemical Engineering, ably leads the Engineering College as its current Dean. GSIA gained its reputation by emphasizing the use of modern mathematics, behavior sciences, and orderly analytical problem-solving in managerial decision-making. President Richard M. Cyert, a former dean of GSIA, has successfully applied these concepts to transform the University's fi- nancial state into one of fiscal health: the Univer- sity is run without deficits. In this era of a nation-
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION
wide decline in college enrollments, it is important for a university to have good fiscal management.
GENERAL ATMOSPHERE
BUT I BECAME MOST enthusiastic about that segment of the university with which I am most familiar: the Department of Chemical Engi- neering. It is a dynamic place, with continuous and productive activity. Such activity is possible both because of superior people, and because of good relations among the faculty and between faculty and students. Tom Fort, as Head of the Department, de- serves much of the credit for generating and main- taining that atmosphere. In spite of many time- consuming administrative chores, he maintains an open-door policy in his relations with both faculty and students: he will listen to any and all prob- lems. Knowing the talents of each of the faculty, Tom applies his administrative influence to help each of us to make the most of our talent. Finally, the Department is run in a democratic manner: each of the .faculty is polled before a decision is made on a matter of substance. Such policies per- mit good relations among faculty and promote productivity. Good relations are also enhanced by the Friday happy-hours organized by the graduate students. The proceeds from a soft-drink machine operated by the students are used to buy beer which is then made available, free, to all. These well-attended weekly events are held in the department's gradu- ate student lounge (ignored by the University) which contains a pool table, a fooze-ball table, a TV-Pong game, and the daily New York Times, all obtained from vending machine proceeds.
Prof. Cussler answered a knock at the door of his office only to ·be greeted by a shaving cream pie,in the ,face, which was prepared by a group of students to celebrate his birthday.
Besides the formal weekly departmeiitar sem- inars at which researchers from outside the Uni- versity are invited to speak, several internal sem- inar programs have been organized. One of these is the biweekly "zoo meeting," in which graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the pro- grams directed by Ed Cussler or Fennell Evans get together to discuss recent findings. On alter- nate weeks, another informal seminar meets. The
SUMMER 1978
latter program, organized by John Anderson, in- volves more than half the faculty in the Depart- ment and their graduate students as well as a few from other departments. Topics generally pertain to interfacial phenomena or preparation and be-
Simultaneous collisions in many-body systems are possible. This photo· records one such event in which all the faculty of the ChE Department were recently found in the same place at the same time. Seated (left to right): Kun Li, Bob Rothfus, Tom Fort, Steve Rosen, and Ed Cussler. Standing are Gary Powers, Rosemary Frollini, Clarence Miller, Ethel Casassa, John Zondlo, Dennis Prieve, Fennell Evans, Eric Suuberg, Tony Dent, Mike Massey, John Anderson, Howard Gerhart, and Art Wester• berg.
havior of hydrosols. Some of the talks are reviews or tutorials, but the main purpose of these sem- inars is to convey freshly obtained information and to gather criticism regarding the proposed interpretation. A third group, organized by Art Westerberg and Gary Powers, meets regularly to discuss problems related to computer-aided design. These informal seminars provide a means for broadening perspectives on problems which are in- completely solved. The resulting interplay of ideas has a synergistic effect, causing the total research output of the Department to be greater than the sum of contributions possible from isolated in- dividuals. It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those who love it. --Daniel Webster (1818) All Souls College, Oxford, planned better than it knew when it limited the number of its undergraduates to four; four is exacly the right number for any college which is really intent on getting results. --Albert Jay Nock (1943)
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dents, we have increased the number of faculty members by three since I arrived, and have broken core courses into multiple sections. However, none of the lecture or recitation sections is taught by a graduate student. One of the new faculty members is John Zondlo, who is a full-time instructor in charge of the three undergraduate lab courses. Prof. Zondlo takes care of the daily operation of the lab, including a total refurbishment of the facilities during last summer, daily maintenance of the equipment, and setting up the schedule of experiments. The rest of the faculty equally share the responsibility of explaining experiments to students, deciding on any modifications to existing apparatus, and grading the lab reports, with about two or three experiments assigned to each faculty member. An educational development, which occurred here several years ago, was the organization of the Colloids, Polymers, and Surfaces Program (CPS). It grew out of an expression of need by local in- dustries for graduate -level training of some of
A n educationa l development, w hich o cc urred here sever al ye ars ago, w as the organization of the Colloid s, Polymers, and Surfaces Program (CPS).
their employees in these specialized areas. Since there were several faculty members here who had research interests in these subjects, Fennell Evans took on the task of organizing a joint program with the Chemistry Department which leads to a nonthesis Master's degree in CPS. Besides a core of lecture courses, students are required to com- plete eight credits of a special laboratory course taught by Ethel Casassa. Students get individual instruction on a variety of research-oriented in- struments. All these instruments are also available to other students in chemistry or chemical engi- neering who may need them for their thesis re- search. While the CPS program was designed for students who hold full-time jobs in local industry, a number of regular graduate students have elected either some of the lecture courses or a joint ChE-CPS Master's degree, which requires a thesis Because of the interest and favorable reaction from industry, plans are underway to teach some of the material in the CPS program to under- graduates in ChE. Fundamentals of colloids, poly- mers and surfaces will be taught in new lecture courses with applications to conventional unit op-
SUMMER 1978
erations such as polymer processing and solid/ liquid separations. Again, a laboratory course will be included in the curriculum to illustrate the principles. Another recent educational development in the Department is the New Alternatives Program, which was designed to give master's-level training in ChE to technically oriented students whose bachelor's degree is not in ChE. Students in the program are given an intensive course during the summer, complete with laboratory experiments, which covers undergraduate ChE principles. Upon successful completion of the summer program, they are admitted to the regular master's degree program, where they compete with other ChE students in both courses and the comprehensive written exam given to all graduate students. De- tails of this program have been previously pub- lished (CEE 11,176 (1977)).
DEPARTMENTAL RESEARCH
A LL FACULTY IN the Department are actively involved in research. Topics are generally re- lated to energy, biochemical engineering, colloids, polymers, surfaces, or computer-aided design. Some of the projects involve the development of large -scale equipment, such as the coal-gasification work by Mike Massey or the development of heat exchangers for the ocean-thermal energy conver- sion (OTEC) plant by Bob Rothfus. Both of these industrial-scale projects involve a number of
Ethel Casassa, giving instructions to students in the CPS lab on the technique for operating a pressure-filter to remove dust from solutions used in light-scattering experiments.
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These informal seminars provide a means for broadening perspectives on problems which are incompletely solved. The resulting interplay of ideas has a synerqistic effect, causing the total research output of the department to be greater than the sum of contributions possible from isolated individuals.
faculty from several departments. Eric Suuberg also conducts energy-related research in coal pyrolysis.
Clarence Miller and Tom Fort are currently studying systems where surfactants lower interfacial tensions be- tween oil and water. One major application is in tertiary oil-recovery, where surfactant flooding is used to increase the amount of oil obtained from wells. Prof. Miller is also interested in spreading of liquids on rough surfaces and other interfacial phenomena. Gas adsorption and surface chemistry are also of interest to .Prof. Miller and, sep- arately, to Tony Dent, whose research focuses on hetero- geneous catalysis. Other studies of kinetics of gas-solid reactions are .preformed ·by Kun Li, who worked for s, a local steel manufacturer before joining CMU. As a result, his particular subject is iron-ore reduction, where he has some fascinating electronmicrographs showing reduced- iron whiskers growing out of the oxide. Why, lhe asks , does reduction occur in this manner? Kun Li and Bob Rothfus also have an interest in fine particle technology. Their most recent joint venture was to study the coagulation of iron-oxide particles in water by the addition of alum. Thus, Prof. Li provides a link between the gas/solid interface people and the liquid/solid interface people. John Anderson's research concerns hindered diffusion of hydrosols and macromolecules in pores, together with electrokinetic effects which result from the charge on all solid/aqueous interfaces. Examples of hydrosols (a phase which is finely dispersed in water) include latex paints, waste-water sludge, milk and most other foodstuffs, -1s well as blood cells and globular proteins. Prof. Anderson's work overlaps with mine, which is the transport of hy- drosols. Because of their finite size and electrostatic charge, colloidal particles behave differently from mole- cular solutes. I am currently applying my approach to the deposition of latex films on steel surfaces. On the other hand, Prof. Anderson's work is applicable to the transport of large solu es through porous membranes as well as the catalyzed reaction of macromolecules in liquid-filled pores. Additional studies on transport of 'molecular or ionic solutes through biological membranes are conducted by Ed Cussler and Fennell Evans. 1 They attempt to explain such anamolous behavior as transport of a solute in the direction of increasing concentration, or transport at a rate which is nonlinearily related to the difference in ton- contration across the membrane. Prof. Cussler is also con- cerned with solubilization kinetics and the psychophysics of texture-that is, relating what people perceive as the feel of foods to chemical and physical properties. He likes to introduce the latter subject as the "Funny Feelies" (maybe that's why some people jokingly call him Crazy Ed).
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Fennell Evans is also involved with surfactants, with applications to detergency. He recently developed a sur- factant-selective electrode for measuring the concentration of free surfactant molecules in the presence of aggregates of surfactant molecules known as micelles. This and other work on the behavior ' of electrolytes complements much of the research here on aqueous systems. Both John Anderson and I use Jatex polymers as sols in our work. The mechanism for synthesizing these sols by emulsion polymerization is one of the topics· of Steve Rosen's research. He is also developing an 'in situ poly- merization process for stabilizing soil on which emergency shelters could be built and is studying ways to separate polymer mixtures in order to recycle the huge masses of petroleum-based polymers which are discarded as solid municipal wastes. A third project, in cooperation with Tom Fort, focuses on improved interfacial bonding in polymer-based composites.
As a Vice President of PPG Industries, Howard Gerhart was instrumental in the incep- tion of: the CPS program. After retiring from PPG in 1974, Dr. Gerhart joined CMU and or- ganized the National Coatings Center (NCC). As a branch of Carnegie-Mellon Institute of Research (CMIR), NCC provides a national focus for both fundamental and applied research related to coat- ings and corrosion. Besides a full-time staff of postdoctoral researchers, who cooperate with fac- ulty in chemistry and ChE, the NCC has access to the analystical-instrument resources of CMIR, the present counterpart of the 'pre-merger Mellon Institute. Dr. Gerhart and I have cooperated in several projects, including the electrophoretic and chemiphoretic (electroless) deposition of latex films on metal surfaces, and the sacrificial protec- tion of steel against corrosion. At the NCC, Dr. Gerhart has also succeeded in developing a new polymeric material with a high refractive index for optical use. Much of the research described above lies on an interface between ChE and some other dis- cipline (often chemistry). However, Gary Powers and Art Westerberg are studying the use of the computer in the very traditional area of chemical process design. They cooperate, through the De- sign Research Center (DRC), with people in all the other engineering departments on campus, as Continued on page 135.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION
