Hello everybody!

The team’s made great progress on designing our prototype! For starters, we’ve submitted purchase request for our frame assembly, including 80/20 Aluminum extrusions and fasteners. It’s a nice feeling to start buying parts for our prototype, and we’re looking forward to seeing all our hard work this past year start to come to fruition! We’ve also developed a flow chart for our solid addition device to have a better understanding of its integration into our system.

We’ve also received our agenda for our onsite visit next week and look forward to getting any feedback and assistance in our project in doing so, especially in anticipation of our QRB 2 the very next day. We’re going to try to prepare some good and hard questions to ask during our visit and hope to clear up any questions we’re having about our project. Stay tuned for more updates!

Hi everybody!

This week, class was cancelled, and we were instead given the allotted time to work on our projects. We were able to make a lot of progress as a result. We were able to perform material balances on our proposed system to better understand what flowrates and necessary equipment we might need to carry out our reactions. Besides that, we also communicated with our liaison to discuss potential CSTRs we could purchase for our project.

The extra time helped us make a lot of technical progress on our project, so we’ve been able to make a lot of headway on the heavier technical aspects of our prototype design. We’re hoping to carry this momentum into the next coming weeks as we begin to showcase our progress for QRB 2 and also perform site visits at Milliken. Stay tuned for more updates!

Hi everyone!
The team met with our liaisons and discussed the scope of our current physical prototype. We as a team agreed that the current scope was ambitious given the limited time we have left and have decided to scale down to focus on an intermediate product formation portion of the process. We are still working on the complete theoretical outline of the entire process in Aspen Plus.

This major scope change allows us to focus our efforts on producing a higher quality physical prototype that can be tested more easily and frequently than if we had to physically assemble the entire physical process. We’re looking forward to hearing back from our liaisons to see what they have to say and if they have any feedback about our decision and look forward to getting our hands dirty with building a functional prototype soon! Stay tuned for more updates as we begin to make more headway with our prototype!

Hello everyone!

This week was a big one; we presented at the first of two Qualification Review Boards this semester (QRB 1)! We received a lot of solid feedback about our project; for example, the coaches highlighted how the scope of our project is ambitious, which might make it difficult for us to realize a physical prototype. We’re considering discussing with Milliken the feasibility of our current project scope as a result, and we’re looking to potentially reduce the scope of our project to ensure we’re likely to produce an iteratively tested prototype by the end of the semester.

A major scope change would completely restructure our project plan for the remainder of the semester, but it’s looking to be necessary for us given how ambitious our current project scope is. We plan to discuss with our liaisons the feasibility of our current project scope, and in the meantime look into equipment we could purchase for our project such as CSTRs and fasteners for our frame assembly. Stay tuned for more updates as we approach this watershed moment in our project!

This week, the team has been working extensively on finalizing a parts list for the project. After visualizing a reactor design as part of the SLDR, the next step is to find a reputable vendor to order 3 CSTRs. We’ve looked at recommendations from Milliken and have been scouring the internet for chemical reactor vendors that fit our budget, along with other equipment that will be necessary in our prototype.

Aside from creating an equipment list, the team also did some internal work before heading into the second semester. After working together for nearly 4 months we learned a lot about how we collaborate, and have decided to shift the leadership and administrative roles. Luke and Kaylee will be leading the team together, while Patrick and Paola will be in charge of communication with Milliken and reaching out to vendors. Faisal will be taking over blog communications as well, so expect to hear from starting next week.

The team is still working on simulating the production of our silane as well, and are currently sifting through databases to find missing chemical properties. Stay tuned for more updates!

Hey everyone, we hope you all had a good Winter Break! Team MaeChem Silanes successfully made their way back to Gainesville to begin working on this project for the Spring semester, and we couldn’t be more excited. The team is slowly getting into the swing of things as we adjust to everybody’s new schedules, and we’ll be making some organizational changes to the team structure as well. Not that much to discuss this week, we’re going to be putting our heads down and getting to work to start off the new semester strong. Stay tuned for future updates, and we’ll see you again next week!