Population Balances in Undergraduate Education in Chemical Engineering

Particle breakage and agglomeration occurs in a variety of processing units in chemical processing at the macroscale, and in colloidal systems as well.  Population balance equations (PBEs) are commonly used to model the evolution of particle size distributions due to breakage and/or agglomeration.  The difficulty with using PBEs in an undergraduate class is that these partial integral differential equations are difficult to solve and have few analytical solutions.  When introducing PBEs in an undergraduate class, the result is that students focus more on the computational techniques than the concepts of breakage and agglomeration and the effects of the parameters.  To address this, a preliminary version of a computer software has been developed for use in a particle and crystallization technology elective course, and a nanotechology in chemical applications course.  This preliminary version of the software will be presented and discussed.