Abstract:

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education is rapidly expanding, especially with natural language processing (NLP)-based tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot. These tools generate automatic responses after being trained on a large amount of information. In higher education, such technologies have significant potential to transform the teaching and learning process. They can be employed in various ways, such as analyzing and processing texts, solving problems, acting as virtual assistants, or providing immediate answers to academic questions, among others. This fosters personalized learning, helping educators create activities and resources that enhance motivation, improve comprehension, and promote critical analysis, ultimately contributing to better student outcomes.

In this work, three types of activities are presented specifically for AI use in the Chemical Reactors subject in the Chemical Engineering degree program. The first two are focused on the student, while the third is designed more as support for the teacher:
1) Exploring Definitions and Concepts: Students explore basic definitions and concepts related to chemical reactors (such as kinetic laws, reactor design equation, multiple reactions, and chemical reactor association) using responses and resources provided by different AIs. They compare the answers given and analyze their accuracy and reliability, thereby promoting critical thinking.
2) Problem Solving: Students input problem statements of varying levels of difficulty and evaluate the ability of different AIs to provide correct solutions. Analyzing and discussing the obtained results can help improve their problem-solving skills.
In both cases, the interaction between students and the AI can take place in different languages, allowing for the analysis of similarities and differences in responses while simultaneously developing linguistic skills in those languages.
3) Test Question Solving and Generation: AI is used to solve multiple-choice questions and generate new ones. Although this activity is primarily designed to assist the teacher by generating new questions and thus expanding the question bank.

Initially, students work individually or in small groups with various AIs, collecting responses. Subsequently, a class discussion session presents and analyses the different results and methodologies employed by the AIs. Beyond promoting critical analysis, these activities encourage collaborative work and the development of skills for evaluating, discussing, and selecting relevant information.

Finally, it is important to highlight that, although these activities are designed for a chemical reactors course, they could be applied to other subjects related to chemical engineering.

Acknowledgments:
The authors thank the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid for the funding provided to carry out this work (IE24.0506).

Keywords:

Chemical engineering, artificial intelligence, education, chemical reactors.