Equipment: Breaking Barriers: Advancing Chemical Engineering Education with Additive Manufacturing Integration

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Educational Instrumentation project at California State University, Long Beach will strengthen undergraduate learning in Chemical Engineering. Specifically, this project will secure advanced extrusion-based 3D printing equipment, a rheometer, and an optical tensiometer, which will allow students to design and fabricate complex 3D structures, and characterize material properties in courses such as Chemical Unit Operations Labs, Fluids, Separation Processes, Heat and Mass Transfer, Chemical Reactor Kinetics, and Polymer Science and Engineering.

An estimated 200 students and 6 faculty members will utilize the project-funded equipment each year. In addition to providing improved experiences in Chemical Engineering courses, the new equipment will also be used in undergraduate research projects.

The goals of this project are to enrich the learning and experiences of undergraduate students by providing critical instrumentation in Chemical Engineering. The advanced 3D printing equipment will enable students to gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge additive manufacturing techniques, while the rheometer and optical tensiometer will provide insights into material behavior and properties, crucial for optimizing 3D printing processes.

These skills are essential for careers in industries such as renewable energy, nanotechnology, and biomedical devices. The project will assess the impact of the project-funded equipment using pre-/post-test assessments, student surveys, and tracking student participation and performance. This project is funded by the HSI Program, which aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and increase capacity to engage in the development and implementation of innovations to improve STEM teaching and learning at HSIs.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.