This course examines engineering as a profession and the responsibilities of that profession to society. Professional responsibilities of engineers are compared to those of lawyers, doctors, scientists and business leaders. Ethical theories are introduced as frameworks to guide ethical decisions on technology implementation. Simple quantitative decision making concepts, including risk-benefit analysis, are introduced as a method for engineers to make ethically optimal choices. A wide range of technologies are discussed and ethical issues facing engineers in maintaining existing technologies and implementing new technologies are examined.

The course focuses on basic principles governing the equilibrium behavior of macroscopic systems and their applications to materials and processes of interest in modern chemical engineering. We introduce the fundamental thermodynamic concepts: energy conservation (First Law); temperature and entropy (Second Law); thermodynamic potentials; equilibrium and stability. These ideas are applied to problems such as calculating the equilibrium compositions of coexisting phases or reacting mixtures, as well as analyzing the thermodynamic efficiency of power generation and refrigeration cycles.