Abstract:

We herein report a recent teaching experience on a subject named “Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering II”, which was affected by the lectures disruptions provoked by the COVID-19 outbreak. The course corresponds to the third year of a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and the contents taught are those typically related to equilibrium-staged and continuous-contact mass transfer operations, i.e. flash, batch and fractional distillation, gas absorption/stripping, liquid extraction and leaching processes. To date, the theory lectures had been always supported by practical workshops based on the traditional problem-solving method consisting in graph paper and calculator. The use of software packages was, mainly, restricted to computer lab sessions using Aspen Plus and Mathcad.

Even though the contents remained the same, the COVID-19 sanitary crisis made us readjust the methodologies in order to adapt to this unexpected situation. The traditional master classes were no longer valid under such a discouraging scenario of 100 % virtual learning. We desperately needed a more engaging approach. Unfortunately, we were unable to access the computer labs on the Campus. We found on the literature an example on how to avail of the Microsoft Excel simple functions to solve solvent extraction problems. The paper opened our minds. Microsoft Excel is part of Microsoft Office, which is commonly installed in most computers. So, it was possible to avoid the problems regarding the software availability. During the virtual sessions using Zoom, the master classes were limited to the minimum time required to introduce the fundamentals. All the contents were directly addressed on specific exercises. The instructions provided by the teacher on a “shared screen” were followed in parallel by the students on their own laptops. Everyone had, at least, some previous knowledge on the software, thus it was easy to deliver instructions. The experience was very successful and gratifying, mainly because the students realized that it was possible to use Microsoft Excel in an “unusual” way that enables very accurate results and nice graphical solutions without making big efforts.

Keywords:

Chemical Engineering, Unit Operations, Microsoft Excel, ICT competences, COVID-19.