Hello everyone! Glad to see you here. Since we have very limited interaction time in class to cover a fairly broad field, an online discussion forum is just the thing for us. I intend to use this forum as an important part of your education in this course; as a place where we can discuss concepts in detail, clear doubts and teach each other.

It is also a place to speculate wildly, try out thought experiments, ask why-not questions and in many other ways push the boundaries of our experience :)

So here are the ground rules:

1. Everyone must contribute at least one original thought every week. This thought may be in the form of a good question, comment, suggestion, answer/explanation etc. Additional contributions invite generous credit. Towards the end of the course, the most productively active person will receive full marks.

2. All posts must be related to the topic at hand.

3. Disagreements are welcome, but keep the discussion gentlemanly - no ad-hominems (unwarranted descriptions of other members character or intellect. Your instructor is also a member).

If you are shy of expressing your opinion in a public forum such as this one, this is the place to overcome your fears; Participation Is Compulsory. You will find your inhibitions dropping away as you interact here so dive right in, heedless of who is reading or what people will think. This is a place to grow.

You are all invited to remember G. K. Chesterton's very wise advice: "A thing worth doing is worth doing badly." So lets start as we are. We can only improve :)

There are a few resources for you:

1. Ullman's Encylopedia of Industrial Chemistry: a great compilation of relevant information and insights.

2. Chemical Process Technology by Jacob Moulijn (a great introduction to this field)

3. Industrial Engineering Chemistry Research (A Journal, available online via the IPC)

4. Chemical Engineering (A Journal, awards the prestigious Kirkpatrick Awards. We will get to them during the course.)

5. Matche.com (An online estimation tool for process equipment. Give it a try :))

6. Chemical Weekly (a place to get prices of chemicals passing through Indian ports)

7. Chemical Economics Handbook (http://www.ihs.com/products/chemical/planning/ceh/index.aspx) - A great place to get an idea of the existing market situation of a wide variety of chemicals.

Electrostatic Precipitator

Alec Desai