KH1242 Sustainable Development and the Chemical Engineer 6.0 credits

• Educational level

  First cycle

• Academic level (A-D)

• Subject area

  Techonology
  

• Grade scale

  A, B, C, D, E, FX, F

• Course page on KTH Social

Learning outcomes

The purpose of this course is to help you:

• Gain greater knowledge of the various activities in which the engineer as one of several participants deals with environmental, economic and social affairs aiming at a sustainable development.
• Gain a greater understanding of the necessity to engineer withherability to influence nature adopts an approach in which the precautionary principle prevails.
• Understand how products and services can be developed in order to better respond to a sustainable society.
• Develop your ability to analyze a product or service in a structured and methodic way and to propose improvements from an environmental perspective.

The objectives of the course:

After the completed course, the student should be able to:

• Describe the changed environmental aspects of nature and society and how they gave rise to different environmental impacts during the past half-century.
• Develope the concept of Sustainable development by relating to ecological, economic and social aspects.
• Show how the laws, regulations and instrumentsare used in environmental contact between the chemical engineer and authorities.
• Provide examples of system effects of cleaner production strategies in comparison with "end of pipe"-action from a sustainability perspective.
• Find and compilerelevant data on materials and chemicals to prevent environmental damage, as well as protect from damage of their own and others work environment.
• Use a system analytical method on a product or a service and propose environmental improvements.
• Interpret an environmental text and make your own assessments of the text from a sustainability perspective.

Course main content

Environmental effects:

Ecological foundations

Localas well asglobal effects

Effects related to chemicals management

International and national instruments:

Sustainable development, in a broader perspective

International environmental cooperation

National laws and instruments

Actions in Sustainable development strategies:

Strategies for cleaner production

Cycles

Sustainable technology development

Sustainable development work in practice:

Searching in chemicaland environmental databases

Systematic work with the collection and assessment of product or service

Environmental Management Systems

Exercise, making a value judgment:

Sustainable development related text review of newspaper article

Eligibility

Completed upper secondary education including documented proficiency in Swedish corresponding to Swedish B, and English corresponding to English A. For students who received/will receive their final school grades after 31 December 2009, there is an additional entry for mathematics as follows:

documented proficiency in mathematics corresponding to Mathematics A.

And the specific requirements of mathematics, physics and chemistry corresponding to Mathematics D, Physics B and Chemistry A.

Literature

Miljöi ett företagsperspektiv, Antonsson et al, Prevent förlag 2007, Upplaga 3:1

Föreläsningsanteckningar/Lecture notes

Examination

• INL1 - Home Assignments, 2.0 credits, grade scale: A, B, C, D, E, FX, F
• ÖVN2 - Assignments, 4.0 credits, grade scale: P, F

Offered by

CHE/Engineering Pedagogics

Examiner

Ingemar Jerling <jerling@kth.se>

Supplementary information

Replaces KH1241 from autumn 2012.

Version

Course plan valid from: Autumn 12.
Examination information valid from: Autumn 13.