Advanced industrial synthesis and experimental design. In this course, the student will learn about synthetic strategies to make industrially important chemicals via methods ranging from classical organic chemistry to biochemistry.

The course builds on the knowledge the students have gained in the introductory courses to chemistry and especially his or her synthetic organic chemistry classes. We will map out ways to arrive at the fundamental basis chemicals from crude oil and discuss a multitude of industrially important synthetic strategies to arrive at down stream chemicals like styrene, vinyl acetate, acetone, phenol etc. While a focus is on the chemistry itself, we will also discuss the chemical engineering problems that have to be overcome to conduct these syntheses on an industrial scale.

In addition, the course will introduce the student to modern methods of pharmaceuticals manufacture as well as biochemistry in the same context. Aspects of surface chemistry and catalysis relevant to industrial synthesis will also be discussed in detail.

The class will be taught in lectures accompanied by interactive tutorials as well as assignment. As a component of this course, experimental design which deals with the design and analysis of experiments with respect to the chemical and process industries will be included. A brief introduction to basic statistics is followed by more detail on the normal probability distribution and its use for hypothesis testing. Linear and multiple linear regression for data analysis is covered. Factorial design and response surface methodology and taught in some detail win the context of engineering problems in the chemical and process industries. Fractional factorial designs and blocking and confounding are also covered in an industrial context. MS Excel is utilised heavily throughout the course in addition to an introduction to specialist statistical packages.

The tools and skills from this course are applicable for students’ current and future research project as well as optimisation work on existing unit operations and even extend to applications outside of science and engineering. The focus is on efficient design and robust, objective analysis.

This course replaces INDC3120.