An-Najah Staff

I would like to highlight one course at a senior 400 level which I developed in cooperation with a team from UMIST (Professor R. Mann and Professor P. Sharratt). The course title is “Fine Chemicals Industry”.

The aim is to deliver an undergraduate course about fine chemicals production which is designed to meet the Palestinian Fine Chemical Industry, PFCI, needs.  To get the utmost out of this course, the content was tailored in a way which satisfies the Palestinian chemical industry’s needs; transfers an international experience in this field and, at the same time, conforms to all existing constraints.

The purposes of the course are:

First:   To introduce traditional methods of fine chemicals production and their associated   problems to both the students and industrial chemical engineers.

Second: To allow students to master the basic knowledge and theory of the “fine chemicals process” and to have the ability to be engaged in practical work. In other words, one of the central goals is to foster the chemical engineers of the future.

Third:  To establish an academic–industrial link in the fine chemicals industry where more research can be shared for the benefit of both ANU and industry.

Fourth: To emphasize the environmental problems facing fine chemicals manufacturers and to outline techniques appropriate for dealing with these.

This new course has been proved to help both new graduate engineers and practised industrialists to gain the required knowledge to solve existing technical problems that they face in their professional lives. As a result, several final year graduation projects directly related to the application of science research in developing the PFCI were carried out. Finally, newborn links between the PFCI and the ANU were established and both sides put forward a plan for more research work.

The design and teaching of a fine chemicals production course had several long term impacts on academic staff, students and the industrial sector. These can be summarised as follows:

·         The involvement of the industrial sector in the educational process proved to be very successful in devising a course to meet their needs. An industrial technology transfer mission by facilitating the inflow and foreign experience through the attraction of highly qualified personnel, visiting professors and an industrial representative was achieved. This mission resulted in introducing new manufacturing process ideas, relationships with process chemistry, recipes, cycle times and occupations. This enriches the Palestinian chemical industry with qualified chemical engineers capable of improving the manufacturing chemical industry. 

·         Carefully-designed handout materials, lectures and workshop programs delivered to the chemical manufacturing engineers in many areas like:  effect of economic factors on technologies used; use of flexible and multi-product plant; ‘Fast track’ projects; product lifecycles and other related issues were well received. These provide and reinforce the necessary chemical industrial education, experience, and training for factory owners and their engineers. Improvement in productivity, effectiveness, and realisation of the environmental impact of fine chemical processes were achieved.

·         The bi-lateral interactive collaboration made it possible to investigate existing production recipe and manufacturing problems, work out solutions and enrich the system’s teaching and training programs.

Several case studies on real industrial problems were highlighted and more research on them was carried out by the final year students:

• Batch process design- scheduling in soap manufactory

• Heat and mass balances in soap manufactory

• Reaction kinetics in soap manufactory

• Perfumed soap - formulation and mixing calculations for local manufacture

• High value activated carbon from olive pip waste

• Assessment of a fluidized detergent powder dryer

A sound interaction has been established with local and national industries where I was involved in their participation in teaching classes to expose their students to real industry applications by facilitating field trips. This interaction has been useful in helping many of our graduates to secure employment with local industry.