Capstone Experience

The Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University offers a senior level course called Process Design (CHME 4703), which is mandatory for all students before they graduate. This semester long course provides valuable experience for our undergraduate students and is one of the most challenging, exciting, and successful programs on campus. A number of alumni, faculty, industrial partners, research institutions, business schools in connection to the entrepreneurship program, as well as many other internal and external sources are involved with this course.

The main objective of this course is to provide a multidisciplinary experience, integrating knowledge from the core, intermediate, and advanced courses in chemical engineering. The capstone design course is the culmination of the entire chemical engineering curriculum. The course intends to give students experience in finding a satisfactory solution for an open-ended problem of the students choosing, which has more than one solution. The design project is carried out in engineering teams of the students’ choosing. A project involving each team gives valuable experience in planning, division of work, and maintaining individual accountability within a framework of group success.

Example projects include sustainability, alternative energy, carbon-based energy, flexible electronics, nanomaterial synthesis, biomaterials, pharmaceutical development, and many many others even those which students can develop themselves. Students incorporate a manufacturing process, process controls, safety, ethics, and a business plan among many other items into their design project. Northeastern Chemical Engineering has a strong history of winning national design competitions based on the rigor of their projects. An example of some of these projects appears below.