Work in Progress: Identifying Current Standards and Addressing the Need for Further Process Safety Education in Unit Operations Courses

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Abstract In 2011, ABET included safety as part of their accreditation criteria based on the recommendations of the US Chemical Safety Board in response to the 2007 explosion at T2 Laboratories in St. Petersburg, Florida [1]. However, industry is still concerned about the lack of safety education in chemical engineering [2]. Since safety is a broad topic, in 2010 the Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) program conducted an industry survey to determine the most pressing needs in chemical process safety content [3]. Some of the recommendations address an understanding of the concepts and the consequences of process safety. Others address identifying, eliminating or mitigating hazards. Another recommendation is to familiarize students with major safety regulations. ABET requires that all chemical engineering students receive safety education, so, while elective environmental or special topics courses may address safety concepts, the concepts must be taught in the core courses [4]. Capstone courses are a natural fit for safety concepts, as are upper level courses such as Unit Operations (UO) that are often laboratory-based [5]. A core class that has design experience or experiments within it, UO is an optimal place for regulations to be covered. This placement encourages the students to consider the constraints of equipment design and experimental parameters in a hands-on environment. The scope of the proposed work will be a baseline survey of four different institutions' current implementations of safety (process, lab, or other) within their own UO curriculum and a set of proposed curriculum improvements, along with a plan to assess the effect of such improvements. [1] U. S. Chemical Safety Board, 2009. “T2 Laboratories, Inc. Runaway Reaction”. [Online]. Available: https://www.csb.gov/t2-laboratories-inc-reactive-chemical-explosion/ [Accessed Apr. 30, 2018]. [2] Y. Luo, P. R. Westmoreland, D. Alkaya, R. V. Alves da Cruz, I. E. Grossmann, W. D. Provine, D. L. Silverstein, R. J. Steininger II, J. B. Talbot, A. Varma, T. McCreight, K. Chin, D. Schuster, 2015. “Academia-Industry Alignment: Expectations about New Graduates, an NSF-Sponsored Study led by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers”. [Online]. Available: https://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/docs/conferences/2015che_academicindustryalignmentstudy.compressed.pdf [Accessed Oct. 14, 2017]. [3] Safety and Chemical Engineering Education, 2010. “SAChE Recommendations for ABET Safety Content in Chemical Engineering”. [Online]. Available: http://www.sache.org/SACHEGuidelinesForABET.pdf [Accessed Oct. 14, 2017]. [4] S. J. Dee, B. L. Cox, R. A. Ogle, “Process Safety in the Classroom: The Current State of Chemical Engineering Programs at US Universities”, Process Safety Progress, vol. 34, pp. 316-319, 2015. [5] A. J. Pintar, 1999. “Teaching Chemical Process Safety: A Separate Course Versus Integration into Existing Courses”, Presented at 1999 ASEE Annual Conference, Charlotte, NC, June 1999. [Online]. Available: https://peer.asee.org/7963 [Accessed Sept. 14, 2017].

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