Integrating green engineering into chemical engineering courses

The need to introduce green engineering concepts and sustainable development issues to undergraduate students has become recognized to be increasingly important by industry and the general populace. One method of introducing this topic to engineers is to use examples of green engineering throughout the curriculum. This paper contains examples from courses such as Freshman Engineering, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, Reaction Engineering, Transport Phenomena, and Process Dynamics and Controls. Through a program funded by the EPA the use of the "Green Engineering: Environmentally Conscious Design of Chemical Processes" text can be incorporated throughout the curriculum. In this program we have developed teaching aides that include: powerpoint presentations, lecture notes, example problems, homework problems, case studies and experiments. In this program we have tailored these tools to fit specific engineering classes such as freshmen and sophomore engineering, mass & energy balances, materials, thermodynamics and upper level chemical engineering courses. We believe that using green engineering principles all through the education process will lead to our graduates being able to design processes and products of a sustainable future.