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Feature News from Chemical Engineering
August 17, 2006
Friends of the OSU School of ChE,
Chemical Engineering students can compete in an annual reaction-powered toy-car contest hosted by the American Institute for Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The cars are homemade, about the size of as shoebox, and powered by a chemical reaction of the student’s choice. The car must travel a distance specified at the start of the competition. Since “closest to the finish line wins”, the reaction must be sufficiently understood to provide controlled and reproducible results.
You may be aware of our students’ success in the regional and national competitions. Last year our students’ won Second Place in the nation with a gas pressure-powered car using grocery-store reactants of hydrogen peroxide disinfectant and pureed beef liver. Other cars have been powered by homemade batteries, fuel cells, or solid fuels; and some have been stopped by chemical clocks or acid etching.
This summer the AIChE Board of Directors decided to require safety documentation, testing, and training to permit student entry in the National Chem-E-Car Competition. This represents necessary progress for this relatively new competition, and reflects substantial influence by the OSU CHE program. I am very pleased.
Many of the cars in the first year of the contest moved by squirting a jet of liquid rearward. Often this jet was the liquid of spent reactants, powered by the pressure of the gas they evolved. For instance, mix baking soda and vinegar in a 2-liter plastic bottle, place it on wheels, uncover the hole in the top, and let it go. The liquid jet discharge produced significant odors. When wet, it was a mess and slipping hazard; when dry, it left an ugly residue on the floor. Our reaction processes were polluting air and land! This did not reflect the "responsible care" attribute of chemical engineering practice. Faculty in our program recognized this and became the primary voice to get the national competition rules to declare "no discharge of materials, except innocuous gases".
Our program also recognized the safety issues several years back, and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co., who sponsors the OSU competition, provided personnel to review car designs for safety prior to construction. We also initiated safety check-offs by the judges to qualify cars, at both our local and the regional competition that we hosted.
By contrast, each year in the past, there has been at least one non-safe event in national competition - plastic pressure vessel exploding, fire, etc. There was a move within the national AIChE body to stop the Chem-E-Car competition.
We don't stop the chemical process industry because we want to remove hazards from the employees and public. Instead, we operate processes in a safe manner, so that we can benefit from the products.
The Chem-E-Car competition represents the practice of chemical engineering - make a process which is sufficiently well understood, work safely, be environmentally kind, come to fruition within budget and timelines, be developed within a team environment, etc. The Chem-E-Car competition should become a mechanism for promulgating the practice of chemical engineering, including Environmental, Health, and Safety awareness and techniques, within ChE educational programs. This was our “voice” in the national decision.
I am pleased with the AIChE position to continue the competition and to require that it integrate safety.
I am especially pleased with our faculty and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. for their role in shaping this national program, and influencing relevance in chemical engineering education on a national level.
Russ
R. Russell Rhinehart Bartlett Chair and School Head School of Chemical Engineering
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Progress in the National Chem-E-Car Competition
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