Chemistry Laboratories

Students are introduced to the calculation and design of industrial facilities, including matter transfer and simultaneous heat and matter transfer (p.i., distillation processes, continuous and discontinuous rectification, drying of solids, absorption of gases, liquid-liquid extraction, etc.). Students acquire analytical skills and learn how to use information sources to solve practical problems related to chemical processes and installations. Critical analysis and decision making skills are required. Students learn how to acquire, process, treat and correlate experimental data using the most appropriate computer tools. They also learn to model phenomena, operations and processes in chemical engineering using mathematical models that describe the results obtained and allow them to be predicted and simulated. Critical analysis of the results must allow students to draw valid conclusions.

The Laboratory's equipment includes 1 fractional distillation column, 2 adiabatic reactors, 5 continuous reactors, a vertical and horizontal electrophoresis device, 1 Engler viscometer, 2 peristaltic pumps, 1 transilluminator, 1 conductometer, 1 microcentrifuge and 2 packed columns.

Students are introduced to experimentation and consolidate their basic knowledge of atomic structure and molecular interactions through matter and energy equilibria, biotechnology, matter transfer, separation operations, chemical reaction engineering and the design of reactors and recovery and transformation of raw materials and energy resources. They acquire the ability to design experiments and to acquire, process, treat and correlate experimental data. They propose and gather mathematical and/or physical models that describe the results, draw conclusions and critically analyse the results.

The Laboratory is equipped with magnetic and magnetothermal stirrers, an analytical balance, a centigram balance, a centrifuge, a drying oven, an incubator, refrigerators, a pH meter, heating plates, a blender, a dryer and optical microscopes.

The Laboratory allows students to consolidate their basic knowledge of stoichiometry and the kinetics and equilibrium of complex systems with multiple chemical reactions. Students apply this knowledge in designing chemical reactor installations with the most appropriate configurations for a specific reaction, determining thermodynamic and transport properties and modelling phenomena and systems in chemical engineering such as fluid flow systems, heat transfer, matter transfer operations and the kinetics of chemical reactions.

The Laboratory's equipment includes an AA spectrophotometer, UV-VIS spectrophotometers, HPLC, a magnetic stirrer, magnetothermal stirrers, vacuum pumps, a UV light chamber, conductometers, FTIR, heaters, melting-point apparatus, a pH meter and water baths.