INNOVATION DAY 2024 | Chemical Engineering

Students: Hayley LaCost, Ethan Lopez-Laing, Braden Crawford, Sophie Dawson
Advisors: Nolan Erickson

Anhydrous Lithium hydroxide - the dehydrated form of Lithium hydroxide monohydrate - is used in CO2 scrubbing for submarines, ship hulls, and in aeronautical spaces. We have been tasked both to update and optimize the current production process at Albemarle's Silver Peak facility and to design a new process from scratch. This project requires extensive knowledge in reactor design, reaction kinetics, process design, and industrial processing techniques; skills all used in chemical engineering.

Students: Bryce Campo, Corban King, Josiah Guyer, Austen Rorex

Our  team is developing a bench-scale copper sulfate, CuSO4, crystallization experiment for the CHE Unit Operations Laboratory. The system is designed to help chemical engineering students connect thermodynamics, kinetics, and separations through a visually engaging and data-driven process. Students will learn traditional cooling crystallization, using solvent composition and cooling rate as practical operating variables to control supersaturation, yield, and crystal size distribution. The project emphasizes reproducibility, safe operation, and realistic downstream handling through filtration, washing, and drying as is seen in industrial crystallization. By pairing simple measurements (mass recovery and size analysis) with solubility concepts, the lab is intended to be both accessible for undergraduates and technically rigorous enough to support open-ended experimentation.

Students: Daniel Morales, Travis Rothgeb, Spencer Fellenz, Daniela Vega-Rinne
Advisors: Ed McNew Mountain Pass Materials

Design of the process to produce water soluble rare earth chlorides from a rare earth concentrate derived from bastnasite mineral. The "one-step" process is carbochlorination of the rare earth carbonate fluorides in a fluidized bed. Introducing rare earth carbonate fluorides into a chlorine rich environment with carbon reduces the rare earths into rare earth chlorides. These rare earth chlorides are soluble in water, which allows for the separation of the rare earth chlorides into their constituents. These rare earth constituents are lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and praseodymium. Separation of the rare earth constituents allows for further production of rare earth based materials, such as permanent magnets for use in electric motors.