Projects I and II

[Vishwanath Dalvi]

Hi All,

 

I have added Project I and Project II topics to the Excel file that Ashutosh sent me.  I have listed below the group number, first person in the group and the Project I topic and Project II topic.

 

The project II is from Industrial Organic Chemicals (Ed II) by Witcoff et al (available in the library under 71-WIT-76192).  Each group is assigned part of the book to read and present to the class (more about this below).

 

Group 1 (Nutal Patil): Ethylene Oxide, Chapter 16-Carbohydrates

Group 2 (Tushar Mahendrakar): Acetic Acid, Chapter 6 - Propylene

Group 3 (Vineet Venkatnarayanan): Acetaldehyde, Chapter 10&11 - Toluene and Xylene

Group 4 (Chetan Patil): Methyl Methacrylate, Chapter 18 - Industrial Catalysis

Group 5 (Nilabh Kajave): Caprolactam, Chapter 9 - Benzene

Group 6 (Karishma Attarkar): Terepthalic Acid, Chapter 19 - Green Chemistry

Group 7 (Sagar Udyavara): Vinyl Chloride, Chapter 5 - Ethylene

Group 8 (Ruchi Jain): Methanol, Chapter 20 - Sustainability

Group 9 (Yogesh Methekar): Pthalic and Malic Anhydride, Chapter 7 & 8 - C4 and C5 Compounds

Group 10 (Ashish Jayaraman): Fischer Tropsch, Chapter 17 - Fischer Tropsch

 

What is expected:

Both projects are rather straightforward. 

 

For Project I, most (all?) of the information you need is available in the relevant articles in Ullman's Encyclopedia, or in the other encyclopedias (Kirk Othmer and McKetta's) or in Moulijn.  But it is still a good idea to refer to some recent reviews on the subject. Given the large number of people per group, I think it justified to add a twist.  I want each group to go and edit the Wikipedia entry on this topic.  Figure out how to do this by yourselves. 

 

I need you to include an market analysis of the chemical - a recent history of production, trends, major manufacturing centres, major uses, plant costs etc.  It will be useful to you later on.

 

For Project II, everything is available in one place - the relevant chapter of Industrial Organic Chemicals (Ed-II).  You have to take this information and process it into something that your classmates can grasp quickly and refer to later. 

 

Grading:

For Project I, I had said previously that you would be graded on the value added to the Wikipedia entry.  But that is cumbersome and uncertain. So you will be graded on the quality of the current Wikipedia entry.  Your writing should be easy to read, anticipating confusions or questions from the reader and answering them in the article itself.  Links to relevant topic are invaluable. 

 

You have to be very careful not to plagiarize from your source materials and to use the Wikipedia writing style.  It will be a good education for you.

 

For Project II, you will be graded on the creativity and quality of your "presentation" which need not be PowerPoint. A poster, a webpage, a sculpture, anything that conveys the information creatively is welcome.  Be careful not to confuse your audience.  In case you do choose to do a Power Point presentation, then you MUST NOT present a list of reactions from the book.  The book has already done that.  You have to process the information in the book. 

 

Deadline:

The deadline for Project I is the Sunday after Vortex (i.e. 26th October midnight).  At this time the Wikipedia entries should be up.  To be on the safe side, email your entries to me in .pdf form.

 

The deadline for Project II is the Tuesday after that (i.e. 29th October morning).  That day is free for your class and we will see the presentation all day together.

 

This is very exciting!  Looking forward to what you will put up :)