April 14, 2023
Mizzou Engineering this week dedicated a chemical engineering lab that gives students and faculty access to leading-edge equipment.
Noah Manring, Dean and Ketcham Professor, and Kevin Gillis, Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, joined distinguished alumni to celebrate the Jost Chemical Company Chemical Engineering Unit Operations Laboratory during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday.
The lab will be a centerpiece of the chemical engineering program, Gillis told attendees.
“It ensures we have the right equipment for our students and faculty to continue to push boundaries, develop new techniques and technologies and discover new possibilities,” he said. “It will equip our students to design and optimize processes to solve grand challenges.”
Jost Chemical Company and its founder and CEO, Jerry Jost, BS ChE ’70, donated significant equipment and resources to the space. Jost is a member of the Chemical Engineering Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and a recent recipient of the Missouri Honor Award, the highest honor bestowed by the College. In 2021, he also established the Jerry L. Jost Endowed Chair in Chemical Engineering.
The Chemical Engineering Academy of Distinguished Alumni (CEADA) also invested in the space and, along with the IAB, provided guidance to ensure that the full renovated lab provides training experiences that students will need throughout their careers, Manring said.
Yangchuan “Chad” Xing, Cramer L. LaPierre Professor and associate chair of the department, will oversee the teaching lab, where students will convert classroom lessons into hands-on experience.
Specifically, students will work on techniques such as distillation, gaining a better understanding of how parameters such as temperature, pressure and composition effect separation processes. They will study membrane separation for advances in processes such as water desalination. They’ll work with catalytic reactors, learning to optimize reaction conditions for maximum efficiency. Students will study chemical conversion, using equipment to convert organic wastes into valuable products such as fuel, chemicals and materials. And they will gain hands-on experience in heat transfer processes, learning conduction, convection, radiation and how to optimize heat transfer rates for maximum efficiency.
“What an incredible space to serve future chemical engineers,” Manring said. “We look forward to seeing the advances and training that come out of this lab.”
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