CHEMICAL ENGINEERING BUILDING AT IOWA STATE COLLEGE ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT STATION, IOWA STATECOLLEGE, LIONELK. ARNOLD, AMES,IOWA The new chemical engineering building at Iowa State College is attracting the attention of many college and industrial executives, largely because it represents one of a very few buildings designed especially for this class of work. This building is the outgrowth of the demands of the department for more effective housing necessary for its proper development. To understand the building, one must understand the policies and aims of the department. The Chemical Engineering Department at Iowa State College differs from many other such departments administratively by being an entirely separate department with separate faculty and separate policies. It is believed that chemical engineers worthy of the name cannot be trained merely as side issues by departments of chemistry or of mechanical engineering. This may perhaps be shown better by a consideration of just what constitutes chemical engineering and the chemical engineer.. It may seem rather facetious to say that any sort of engineering is 1argel.y a ' state of mind. But the whole education of the engineer is built around the idea of attackmg problems in the engineering manner, that is, with the engineering viewpoint or state of mind. The mechanical engineer attacks the problem from the mechanical standpoint, the electrical engineer from the electrical standpoint, and the chemical engineer from the chemical standpoint. To be surg: the chemical engineer has developed a number of operations which, though more or less mechanical, he calls fundamental processes of chemical engineering. Not strictly chemical in themselves, they are processes which are necessary in large scale chemical work, just as are many mechanical operations of the chemist in his laboratory. But it is a far cry from the glass filter funnel of the chemist to the big rotafy filter of the chemical engineer, or from the mortar and pestle to the modern crushing and grinding equipment. The design and operation of these tools of the chemical engineer are a separate science from that of the chemist or mechanical engineer, and must be taught as such. It is just as difficult to develop the chemical engineering viewpoint in the chemical laboratory by chemistry instructors as the mechanical engineer in the pure physics laboratory by physics instructors. This does not in any way imply that the chemistry training is not necessary to the chemical engineer. I t is of fundamental importance, just as physics and mathematics are likewise of fundamental importance. At Iowa State College all of the pure chemistry in the chemical engineering course is taught by the chemistry faculty. This gives the student the advantage of training by specialists in the various branches of chemistry so that he is well grounded in the fundamentals on which to base his true chemical engineering training.
The laboratory apparatus and the experimental work of chemical engineering are such as to require a laboratory of diierent type from that used in pure chemistry work. Even the semi-commercial laboratory equipment often extends up heights greater than ordinary ceilmgs. It is frequently desirable to have two or more floors available for groups of equipment. The equipment is often very heavy, necessitating very strong floors. Heavy equipment must frequently be attached to walls and ceilings. Provision must be made for power and power transmission. Water and sewage pipes need to be large in size with large floor drains. Ample ventilation for the removal of disagreeable and harmful gases is required. All of these things were kept in mind in designing the new building.
The building is of steel frame construction with concrete floors and brick walls. The exterior brick is of pleasing red color which blends artistically with the white stone trim. The interior brick is of concrete. The latter not only blends well in color with the concrete floors and gray steel work, but because of its splendid acoustical properties is ideal for the well-like main laboratory. The H columns throughout the building have purposely been left uncovered so that they are available for attaching of equipment such as shafting. The main laboratory in the center of the building extends upward about thirty-five feet into a monitor. Surrounding the main laboratory is a mezzanine floor open into it on all but a portion of one side. This makes it possible to set up equipment on both floors with the desired
connecting pipes, conveyors, or other equipment. The roofs of both the main portion of the buildmg and the monitor are flat so that it is possible to utilize them for equipment which can be set up outside. Not only does
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the monitor provide the extra height necessary for some equipment but makes possible through the numerous windows the removal of steam and noxious gases from the laboratory. Another feature of the building is the provision for temporary set-ups of
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equipment. The use of temporary set-upsis apart of the teaching policy of the department. There are, in general, two methods of teaching chemical engineering laboratory work. One method is to have a complete set or
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sets of equipment for the production of some chemical commodity or commodities. It in reality functions as a small scale factory operated by students. Excellent as this is in showing the detailed routine of a given indus-
try and the details of machinery for that industry, it is rather narrow in its scope and inclined to be rather more superficial than fundamental in its presentation of chemical engineering principles. The project method, on the other hand, is concerned with the carrying out of manufacturing projects involving the fundamental operations of chemical engineering. The operations carried out and studied are those fundamental to all chemical industries. They are the units which make up the completed whole of the final plant and are the basis of all chemical engineering operations. In following out this method it is frequently necessary and desirable for the students to make their own set-ups from equipment available. In
the carrying out of research projects, new equipment frequently must be constructed and put into operation. For these uses there are located on the various H columns which support the building groups of outlets so that there is available a t each of these positions steam, electric power, gas, water, and compressed air. Portable electric motors and speed reducers in this way provide power a t any part of the building. At the west end of the second floor are located the laboratories for control and small scale research work. These are of rather unique construction. A long narrow room is divided by regulation chemical tables into a series of small laboratories each entered by a separate door. Gratings extending from the tops of the tables to the ceiling insure the privacy of
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the laboratories. A balance room and a store room are located on this floor. The remainder of the space on the mezzanine floor is used for setting up laboratory equipment. Surroundmg the main laboratory and under the mezzanine floor are located the general office, office and private laboratory of the head of the department, office of the assistant professor, digester room, water softening laboratory, furnace room, grinding room, machine shop, and heavy chemical storeroom. A small basement is used for fermentation work. The laboratory equipment of the department includes such apparatus as single and double effect vacuum evaporators; vacuum dryer; centrifuges;
various kettles and digesters; a glass-lined still and condenser; plate and frame, Kelley, and Sweetland filters; autoclaves; electric, gas, and oilfired furnaces of various types; jaw, gyratory, and roll crushers; swing hammer mill; shredder; Hardinge mill with air separator; besides tanks, pumps, and other miscellaneous equipment. But the function of the modern chemical engineering department does not end with the instruction of its students. This is particularly true in a state school where it is under obligation to be of service to the state. This obligation may be discharged in one of two ways: by research on subjects of particular interest to the citizens of the state or by direct consulting aid to the individuals and industries of the state. The scope and character
of this research and this consulting aid will vary with the state according to local needs. One of the characteristics of the state of Iowa is the hardness of its water supply. Prior to the water softening work of the department which was begun in 1920, this hard water was costing the industrial users of the state an immense sum of money. Not only has extensive research work been carried on, but the staff of the department has given freely of its time in a consulting capacity on problems of this nature. It was only natural that a very well-equipped laboratory for research on water softening was built up. This laboratory, located on the first floor, is fitted up with several zeolitic water softeners, a lime soda softener, and much research equipment. Iowa is largely an agricultural state. While immense quantities of byproducts, such as straws, stalks, and cobs, go to waste every year the farmers secure a very small return from their investment and labor. The utilization of these agricultural wastes presents attractive problems to the chemical engineer and was one of the first projects undertaken by the department. The development of this research has resulted in the acquiring of much special equipment for the work. A semi-commercial plant for the production of adhesives and furfural from corn cobs has been set up in the main laboratory. For the production of paper from corn stalks there is set up on the mezzanine floor a stalk washer, a small cooker, a small beater, a stuff chest, a Jordan refiner, a pulp screen, and sheet-forming machinek The production of wall board from corn stalks having been successfully worked out on a small scale, semi-commercial machinery for the further developmentaf the process is being installed. A one-ton paper beater has been set up in the main laboratory. On the mezzanine floor south of the main laboratory are the Oliver pick-up rolls and the Downingtown board-forming machine for forming the sheets of wall board. These are standard equipment for producing a continuous sheet of will board 28 inches wide. For drying, a thiiy-foot C w dryer of the type used in several large wall board plants is provided. The work on wall board is being carried out by the Bureau of Standards in cooperation with the Chemical Engineering Department and the Engineering Experiment Station. The wall board and paper equipment is not used for any instructional work other than research. As already noted, it is the policy of the department to train men with a thorough knowledge of the fundamental operations of chemical engineering rather than to train process men for a given industry. It is quite natural that the greater portion of the graduate work of the department centers around its major activities; that is, water softening and utilization of agricultural wastes. This is in accord with the best educational thought, that each college offers and encourages graduate work along the l i e s for which i t is particularly well fitted so that a superior grade of graduates be produced.
