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Muftah H. El-Naas ∗
Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, UAE University, P.O. Box 17555, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
a b s t r a c t
Active learning refers to the direct involvement of students in the learning process rather than being passive recep-
tors of materials. This paper evaluates the implementation of active learning in teaching seawater desalination as
an elective course in chemical engineering curriculum. Desalination is a multi-disciplinary engineering science that
encompasses elements of water chemistry, material science, transport phenomena, thermodynamics, engineering
design, and corrosion. Water desalination is an important course in most chemical and mechanical engineering cur-
ricula, where the design and analysis of different water desalination processes are addressed. The current teaching
method, however, relies heavily on classical lecture-presentation of the course materials, without any direct involve-
ment of the students. A simple approach that utilizes Excel and Ez-Solve in designing and analyzing desalination
processes has been developed. Active learning is the central part of this course development, where students are
heavily involved in class activities and can directly assess the effect of input variables on the design parameters,
allowing them to carry out “What If” or parameter sensitivity analysis.
© 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
∗
Fax: +971 3762 4262.
E-mail address: muftah@uaeu.ac.ae
Received 19 October 2010; Received in revised form 8 July 2011; Accepted 14 August 2011
1749-7728/$ – see front matter © 2011 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ece.2011.08.001
Author's personal copy
e98 education for chemical engineers 6 ( 2 0 1 1 ) e97–e102
1 The Water Problem To be aware of the water shortage and the available resources in UAE. To understand the
importance of water desalination as a source of drinking water.
2 Saline Water Chemistry To learn the chemistry and analysis of saline water. This includes learning how to determine,
through actual experiments, carbonate equivalent, total hardness, alkalinity, chlorosity and
chlorinity of seawater.
3 Single Effect Evaporation (SEE) To be familiar with Single Effect Evaporation process and be able to carry out material and energy
balances on SEE units.
4 SEE with vapor compression To be familiar with SEE process with thermal and mechanical vapor compression and be able to
carry out material and energy balances on these processes.
5 Multiple Effect Evaporation To be familiar with Multiple Effect Evaporation processes and be able to analyze and design MEE
(MEE) processes.
6 Multi-Stage Flash processes To be familiar with Single and Multi-Stage Flash processes and be able to analyze and design MSF
(MSF) processes.
7 Reverse Osmosis (RO) To be familiar with different types of membrane processes and design RO desalination units.
8 Scale formation To understand the problems associated with scale formation and to evaluate different methods
for dealing with these problems
9 Reject brine management To understand the problems associated with reject brine and examine current and new options
for brine management.
new teaching approach also involves the discussion of several sheets and Ez-Solve algorithms. They are then asked to
in-class problems as part of the PBL (Problem Based Learning). prepare their own Excel sheets and Ez-Solve algorithms
to solve the problem at hand. This type of activity is car-
4.2. Main topics ried out during the two-hour tutorial session. The students
make the calculation using their own laptops; the univer-
A list of the main topics covered in the one-semester course sity requires that all students have laptops as part of the
with intended objectives of each topic is presented in Table 1. educational system.
Most of the course materials such as Power Point presen- 2. In-Class Engaged Learning: the students are directly
tations, reference notes as well as homework assignments, involved in discussing the effect of some input variables on
Excel examples and in-class problems are posted for the stu- the design parameters using Excel and Ez-Solve software.
dents on Blackboard, which is the university’s Online Course The students are usually asked to assess What If a certain
Management system. The main reference for the course is parameter is changed? What will happen to the process? Using
“Fundamentals of salt water desalination” by El-Dessouky and either Excel or Ez-Solve, the students can easily get the
Ettouney (2002). It is important to note that Reject brine man- answer to the posed questions. The students are then asked
agement (Topic 9) is rarely covered in desalination courses or to give physical justifications for the observed change.
even in books related to desalination, despite its significance 3. Project-Based Learning: the students are assigned a
as an environmental and economical challenge to desalina- group-project to analyze a certain aspect of desalina-
tion plants. In this course, the students are exposed to current tion processes (Environmental, Economical as well as new
brine management options such as discharge to wastewa- desalination methods). Examples include: scale formation,
ter treatment plants; deep well injection; land disposal; and brine management, and pre-treatment. The students are
evaporation ponds. They are also introduced to a new option asked to work as groups of 3–4 students and submit a final
involving reactions with carbon dioxide (El-Naas et al., 2010). report on the assigned topic.
Active learning is the central part of this course develop- A typical two-hour class would start with a short review of
ment, where students are heavily involved in class activities the previous lecture for about 5 min using PowerPoint presen-
rather than being passive receptors of material. The students tation. The objective is to refresh the students’ memory and to
are directly involved in the preparation of Excel sheets and integrate or relate the previously taught material with the new
Ez-Solve algorithms as well as carrying out parameter sensi- topic. The students would then be given a lecture on the new
tivity analysis. They also interact with each other and with topic using PowerPoint presentation as well as whiteboard
the instructor in discussing the physical justifications of the illustrations. After about 20 min, the class is paused to give
observed results of their analysis. Three aspects of active examples and involve the students in an in-class discussion
learning were employed in this course: Problem-Based Learn- using Excel and Ez-Solve for real time calculations. Usually, the
ing, Project-Based Learning, and Engaged Learning. students use their own Excel sheets and Ez-Solve algorithms,
which they had already prepared during the previous tutorial
1. Problem-Based Learning (PBL): the students are given an in- session. Most topics involve carrying out material and energy
class problem related to the presented materials. In most balances to derive the main equations for the design param-
chapters, the in-class problem involves numerical calcu- eters: performance ratio (PR), specific heat transfer area (sA)
lations of important design parameters. The students are and specific cooling water flow rate (sMcw ). The balances and
allowed enough time to derive the necessary equations and calculations for Single Effect Evaporation (SEE) are presented
then use Excel or Ez-Solve for computer calculations. At here as an example. Material and energy balances are carried
first, an example for numerical calculation is presented to out on the condenser and the evaporator for the SEE system
the students, where they are showed how to prepare Excel shown in Fig. 1.
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e100 education for chemical engineers 6 ( 2 0 1 1 ) e97–e102
1 Perform material and energy balances on various desalination processes (a) 4.45
2 Perform experiments and analyze experimental data to determine the 4.45
characteristics of seawater (b)
3 Design and analyze new and existing desalination processes to meet desired needs 4.73
(i.e. determine performance parameters) (c)
4 Set up the models and parametric studies for detailed desalination processes and 4.45
solve them in term projects within a group (d)
5 Use a written description of a desalination process to draw the flow sheet, 4.55
determine the model equations of the process and solve it to obtain the
characteristics of each unit and find the performance parameters (e)
6 Explain and discuss thoughts and results to the others by writing a well organized 4.18
report (g).
7 Search and locate information using the library or internet on new and emerging 4.45
desalination processes as well as problems related to desalination (i)
8 Use excel or other software (Ez-Solve) to run an iterative solutions and assess 4.80
parameter sensitivities (What if?) for different desalination processes (k)
4.4. Course assessment by students tors of materials and can directly assess the effect of input
variables on the design parameters, allowing them to carry
Gauging the students’ feedback on the course delivery is out “What If” or parameter sensitivity analysis. Course assess-
an important aspect of any course development. The stu- ments by the students and final evaluations indicated that
dents course assessment was obtained in terms of ABET 2000 the students’ performance, interest and retention of informa-
program outcomes. In 1997, ABET (Accreditation Board for tion have tremendously improved. This can be judged by high
Engineering and Technology) adopted Engineering Criteria interest in the course, high student participation, high grades,
2000, which shifted focus away from the inputs (what mate- and large student satisfaction.
rial is taught) to the outputs (what students learned) and
stressed continuous improvement. The ABET 2000 program Appendix A. Supplementary data
outcomes are given in Table 2. Each of these items (a–k) rep-
resents a program outcome that must be achieved at the end
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
of the engineering program. The engineering curriculum must
in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.ece.2011.08.001.
be designed, through course content and delivery, to achieve
these outcomes.
At the end of the course, the students are asked to give References
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