This module seeks to prepare students to work successfully, safely, responsibly, and ethically as engineers. The overarching theme is the design of bioprocesses from a holistic point of view, considering sustainability - technical, economic and environmental of equal importance. The aim of this module is to equip students with the tools to think critically about what constitutes sustainability and to apply both quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the implications of process decisions. Through a range of case studies, students will build confidence in how able to design and evaluate bioprocesses, as well as understand the complexities of the triple bottom line. The module will also situate the role of a biochemical engineer in the context of our responsibilities to create safe and inclusive processes for manufacturing. Scenario-based exercises will be used to apply knowledge gained in the module and build upon team working and problem solving skills developed in the first year Design and Professional skills course.

 

The module is organised in four blocks:

1. Core and Professional Skills for Biochemical Engineering

2. Design and Evaluation of Sustainable Bioprocesses

3. Law for Biochemical Engineers

4. Project Appraisal 

 

Upon completion of the course, a student should be able to:

- Use technical literature and data from a range of sources and synthesise information to produce process flowsheets.

- Describe an engineering problem and the commercial, economic and social context in a written or spoken report, and be capable of giving examples of possible constraints to a process including environmental and sustainability limitations; be able to quantify the effect of changing parameters on the design through sensitivity analysis, evaluating potential outcomes.

- Evaluate the consequences of bioprocess design choices on sustainability through the procedure of Life Cycle Assessment

 - Identify the relevant legal requirements governing engineering activities, including personnel, health & safety, contracts, intellectual property rights, product safety and liability issues and identify situations in their engineering discipline that may have legal ramifications

- Recognise the key risk issues, including health & safety, environmental and commercial risk, and of risk assessment and risk management techniques and identify these for given process examples