News from Chemical Engineering

A team of Chemical Engineering students from Oklahoma State University won first place in the 1998 National Student Design Competition sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The student team members were Richard Bruce, Brian Callihan, and Sean Hockersmith, all seniors.  

Their challenge was to design a process to recover solvents from a process that makes siloxane. Since the solvents included acetonitrile and toluene, process safety, zero emissions, and recovery purity were primary design issues. Of course, process costs and investment economics had to work, too. The design challenge was authored by engineers in industry and was based on an operating process. The panel of judges included experienced chemical engineers from both industry and academe. So, success in the competition indicates that the students were able to integrate all of the industrial practice issues as well as properly apply the fundamentals.

There are about 150 AIChE student chapters in the US. All are eligible to submit design solutions, with the decision to submit, or not to, made by the professor of the chemical engineering design course. This year, 28 teams submitted entries in the competition. We are very proud of our first place winners.

Yes, there is a prize for the winning team. Thanks to alumni contributions, Richard, Brian, and Sean had an expense-paid trip to the 1998 AIChE Annual Meeting, in Miami, Florida (so far so good), where they officially received the William A. Cunningham Award and got to present their design solution to a national body of engineers and professors (That’s a prize?!).

Brian Callihan will continue his studies in chemical engineering. He entered the graduate program at Oklahoma State University in January. Richard Bruce will start a MD/PhD program at the University of Oklahoma. Sean Hockersmith will finish his B.S. this coming May, and has been accepted into the OSU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program.

This is the fourth year of the annual team competition. It is a relatively new category to the long-standing AIChE individual design competitions. The team competition emphasizes cooperation and integration and requires students to work on a more comprehensive challenge.

Wining is our tradition. The 1995 OSU Chemical Engineering team of Ulrike Krause, Jamie Simons, and Janet Wilson also took first place in the AIChE Student Design competition. Our students have won two of the four, 50%, of the national team competitions! And, before them, OSU ChE Seniors had won several of the individual national design competitions.

“Design” is the “capstone” put-it-all-together exercise that characterizes the practice of chemical engineering. Why are OSU students so successful? We think that there are many reasons. Their “Design” course professors, Rob Whiteley and Jan Wagner, are dedicated to the students’ growth, share over 15 years of industrial experience, and give the students great coaching; but, the students did it themselves. We also believe that the entire OSU experience can be credited. Throughout the curriculum, our professors reinforce excellence in the fundamentals, an application perspective, team effectiveness, and the value system to get it right.