Course syllabus

Choosing and designing separation processes is of vital importance for product quality, energy demand, economy as well as for the environmental impact for many industries.

The aim with this course is to give basic knowledge of the physical-chemical basis for different separation methods and to apply these for selection and design of industrial separation processes

The course is divided into themes:

• Theme 1: Overview, choosing separation methods
• Theme 2: Porous media, filtration and membrane filtration
• Theme 3: Evaporation
• Theme 4: Distillation
• Theme 5: Adsorption & Chromatography
• Theme 6: Drying

See also

• Separation processes: Course overview
• Current course syllabus

Pedagogical idea

Learning is promoted by carefully designed student activity

Our brains have a system 1 and a system 2 for thinking (see this video by Veritasium). System 1 is our brain on auto-pilot: it doesn't take much energy and is very quick but we may fail to learn something new and might do really simple mistakes. System 2 takes an effort to use and is used e.g. when circumstances force us to actually use our cognitive abilities.

Thus we have created various learning situations where student activity (using System 2) is encouraged:

• Lectures with student activities such as buzz-groups, quick surveys etc.
• Support-for-note-taking to lectures rather than document that summarizes everything said in the lecture (focuses your note-taking on central issues and makes it possible to discuss issues before the lecturer reveals the "correct" answer)
• Short versions of nearly all lectures have been recorded as YouTube videos so you can go back and repeat things you do not remember or suddenly realize you did not understand
• Exercises where you train your skill to apply the theory. This year (2020) we have booked KC:S and KC:T most of the exercise time slots with the hope that the triangular tables will encourage you to discuss exercises with each other.
• Labs illustrating the theory and where you can feel, hear and touch
• Compulsory tasks, carried out in groups/pairs to encourage discussion and in-depth knowledge
• PeerWise, where  you as a student try to understand the theory by writing your own theory questions and answering others.
• We try to include examples (in the compendium, in lectures, …) that relate to your everyday experiences (like brewing a cup of coffee)

Training is essential. It is by repeated training, e.g. solving exercises, that you can learn yourself how to break down new problems into solvable subtasks.

Learning is a constant movement between frustration and having fun. Having a revelation, suddenly understanding how everyday phenomena actually work and how that knowledge can be used e.g. in industrial processes can be a fun and rewarding experience. But how to get there? It is not what the teacher or teaching assistant assistant does that has the largest impact on your learning, it is what you do. Trying to do things that you do not yet master will sometimes feel frustrating, but it is key to learning. Our experience is that students who take active part are much more likely to pass the exam. We invite you to take active part in all learning situations and will do our best to guide you through the inevitable frustration that is key to learning.