BEE 2220 - Sustainable Engineering Thermodynamics

Spring. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: MATH 2930 (Differntial Equations) or equivalent; CHEM 2070 , CHEM 2090 , CHEM 2150 (General Chemistry) or equivalent; BEE 2510 , BEE 2600 (or equivalent course in Mass and Energy Balances).

J. Goldfarb.

The laws of thermodynamics are elegant statements about the conservation, nature, and behavior of energy in the universe. They are also the roadmap to designing and evaluating sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges, from climate change to food insecurity to the energy crisis. After all, the problem of climate change is essentially an energy imbalance between the heat flow into and out of Earth. The goal of this course is to explore fundamental thermodynamic and kinetics concepts as they relate to key sustainability challenges. We will examine how the first and second laws of thermodynamics underpin life cycle analyses. We will use the concept of exergy to benchmark forms of energy and their potential to do work, enabling us to evaluate policies that promote sustainable solutions such as transportation fleet electrification and landfill diversion strategies. Together, we’ll break down complex concepts such as Gibbs Free Energy and Chemical Potential to understand why pollutants move as mixtures in the environment and how the sea level is rising because of human activities.

Outcome 1: Identify, formulate, and solve quantitative thermodynamic relationships for complex systems integrating knowledge from chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics, and prior mass & energy balance courses.

Outcome 2: Understand the complex, interdisciplinary nature of sustainable engineering problems, and the challenges faced by those who seek to address them.

Outcome 3: Propose and evaluate technical and non-technical aspects of sustainable engineering design solutions using thermodynamic and kinetic fundamentals.

Outcome 4: Identify needs for new information, define a process to find information, and develop the ability gauge the reliability of information.