Chemical and Biological Engineering Capstone Design
Be influential.
Help CU Â鶹ӰԺ Chemical and Biological Engineering students tackle a real-life industrial problem.
The capstone Design Project course in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is a one-semester course for seniors held each spring. Under the guidance of an industry liaison, small teams of students work on true technical problems of interest to the liaison. Students analyze the problem, develop ideas and data, provide oral presentations and prepare a final technical report.
There is no fee to the liaison: industry partners are central to the course, and our student teams value the opportunity to work for an industry professional.
Working with energetic engineering students can be its own reward, but there are others:
- Progress on a problem of interest that might otherwise go untouched
- Identifying future talent for your organization to recruit
- Giving back to the next generation by linking their academic learning to real world applications
- Helping students develop a sense of professionalism
- Connecting with other liaisons participating in the course
Over the past 25 years, the capstone design course has supported over 300 projects from more than 80 different organizations.
Before the semester starts in early January, liaisons provide a brief statement that describes the problem, gives context for the problem and outlines goals for the project. The student team that selects your project will arrange a kickoff meeting in mid-January to discuss the project in greater depth and to set up a regular meeting schedule (usually biweekly) to assess progress. Meetings may be held in person or remotely. Through the 16-week semester, liaisons give informal feedback and guidance to the team.
Students provide a series of deliverables: a project plan, oral reports, possibly biweekly update reports and a final oral presentation to the assembled class and liaisons. The presentation can also be at the liaison's site if local or via zoom. Students also provide a final technical report. We encourage liaisons to offer feedback to the instructor concerning the final reports, but the course instructor is responsible for all grading of student work.
On average, liaisons can expect to devote an average of ~1 hr/wk (15-20 hours total over the entire 16-week semester) to the project and student team.
Capstone design projects can cover a wide range of topics, and any technical problems that can be tackled by people trained in chemical engineering or biological engineering can fit. The common denominator of good problems is that they can be addressed through a "paper" analysis: searching the published literature available at CU to assemble ideas and data, then analyzing those ideas through computer models and other abstract methods.
For chemical process design problems, student teams will typically:
- Develop a process flow diagram
- Carry out a process simulation, which may include heat integration
- Use simulation results, hand calculations, and/or computational modeling to design key pieces of process equipment, and
- Carry out an economic analysis
- Address safety, environmental/health/regulatory issues, and discuss the larger benefits of the project to society.
The course does not have a laboratory per se, although special arrangements for laboratory studies are sometimes possible.
Many clients submit topics that would not otherwise get their attention given other workplace priorities. Some clients offer projects unconnected to their current work that they find personally interesting. Accordingly, we sometimes receive "blue-sky," exploratory-type projects, while other projects have a strong tie-in to the client's current business.
Past design project topics include:
Non-egg based platform for influenza vaccine
Scale-up of recombinant lectin manufacturing process
Li-ion cathode battery materials coating
Manufacture of amorphous spray-dried API/polymer excipient
Process design for pre-sterilization cleaning of cell therapy consumable components
Controlled release polymer for drug delivery
Scale-up and commercialization of a shelf stable, single dose vaccine platform
Develop a design concept for industrial hemp processing, including identifying new potential products.
Using process models, compare batch vs. continuous processing for the production of monoclonal antibodies as human therapeutics.
Develop a photocurable adhesive to bond components of a prosthetic leg together, including a method of application and a cost analysis. (This project included lab work at the liaison's site.)
Complete a preliminary design of a phenol production unit and analyze the profitability, operability and safety/environmental aspects of the process.
Design a natural gas processing facility or a gas-to-liquids process for recovering flare gas.
Design a gas phase polymerization process for manufacturing a polymer.
Develop alternatives to freezing bulk solutions of protein therapeutics in bags or plastic bottles for stability during shipping and storage.
Environmental feasibility of a idstream oil and gas processing facility
Dry ice supply for mRNA vaccine products
Disposable wound protector device
Design a 50 L bioreactor and optimize a bioreactor seed train
Problem statements set forth the goals and deliverables you want done by a student team. We can assist you in preparing your problem statement and can provide examples.
After you have heard from the course instructors about your project idea, we will ask you to download, complete and email the Problem Statement Form below to Wendy Young (wendy.young@colorado.edu) and Alan Weimer (alan.weimer@colorado.edu). We will email you back to confirm we received it.