Connections Between Chemical Engineering Principles and Sustainable Development – A Delphi Study

Research Paper Recommended citation: Bury, N., Shallcross, D., & Male, S. (2025). Connections Between Chemical Engineering Principles and Sustainable Development – A Delphi Study. In Kangaslampi, R., Langie, G., Järvinen, H.-M., & Nagy, B. (Eds.), SEFI 53rd Annual Conference. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), Tampere, Finland. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17631369. This Conference Paper is brought to you for open access by the 53rd Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) at Tampere University in Tampere, Finland. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License. CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT – A DELPHI STUDY N. A. Bury a, 1 , D. C. Shallcross b, S. A. Male c, a Teaching and Learning Laboratory, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, ORCID: 0000-0001-9893-3359 b Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, ORCID: 0000-0003-0552-9758 c Teaching and Learning Laboratory, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, ORCID: 0000-0001-9852-3077 Conference Key Areas: Sustainability and society in engineering, Curriculum development and emerging curriculum models in engineering Keywords: Delphi survey, Chemical Engineering, Engineering Education for Sustainable Development ABSTRACT Engineers are crucial to operating a sustainable society. Enabling engineers to contribute to our sustainable society requires Engineering Education for Sustainable Development, including both generalist and discipline-specific knowledge. No framework for chemical engineering-specific knowledge for sustainable development currently exists. In this study, we answer the research question, “How do chemical engineering principles and concepts contribute to meeting sustainable development challenges?”. By answering this question, we aim to develop an inventory of connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development. Such an inventory will enable meaningful integration of sustainable development into existing chemical engineering curricula. We employed the Delphi methodology to answer this research question with three survey rounds involving 18 participants across three participant groups. Ninety-six unique connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development were identified, and their importance was rated. Sixty-six of those were included in the inventory. Connections for three principles (Systems Thinking, Design, and Separations) are discussed. 1 Corresponding Author N. A. Bury [email protected] 1 INTRODUCTION Sustainable Development (SD) is essential to creating a world where everyone enjoys health, prosperity and justice within a thriving ecosystem (United Nations, n.d.). All areas of society must work together to achieve this equitable world, including engineering and all its disciplines. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to equip all learners with the competencies to progress sustainable development. Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD) seeks to do the same for all engineers. ESD and EESD knowledge and competencies work together with discipline-specific knowledge and competencies to enable engineers to contribute to sustainable societies through their engineering practice. Frameworks of generalist ESD and EESD knowledge are well-discussed in the literature (Beagon et al., 2022; Desha et al., 2019; Rieckmann, 2012; Wiek et al., 2011), but discipline-specific frameworks are more difficult to find. Some work has been done for civil (ASCE, 2019) and mechanical (Enelund et al., 2013) engineering, but little has been done in chemical (ChE) engineering. Allen & Shonnard (2012) proposed a sustainability Body of Knowledge; this framework focuses on the technical side of engineering and the environmental dimension of sustainability rather than holistically analysing both chemical engineering practice and sustainable development. Several sustainable design methodologies have been proposed, most notably Green Chemistry (Anastas & Warner, 2000) and Green Engineering (Anastas & Zimmerman, 2003). Both methodologies can be applied in chemical engineering design, but are difficult to find in existing chemical engineering curricula. Various methodologies have been used to identify the content of these sustainable development frameworks. Methodologies are often qualitative or exploratory mixed methods: a qualitative stage is used to identify potential content for a framework, and a quantitative stage determines what portion of that content should be included in the final framework. Semi-structured interviews (Ortiz-Marcos et al., 2020), focus groups (Beagon et al., 2022) and literature reviews (Guerra, 2012) are common qualitative approaches, and Delphi studies are common exploratory mixed methods approaches (Demssie et al., 2019; Rieckmann, 2012). In this study, we address the research question, “How do chemical engineering principles and concepts contribute to meeting sustainable development challenges?”. To answer this question, a Delphi survey was employed to identify connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development. The study focuses on chemical engineering principles because they are widely used to structure chemical engineering education. These principles are thus accessible to most chemical engineering educators worldwide. Meaningful integration of sustainable development into engineering education can occur via new curricula or enhancing existing curricula: enhancing existing curricula generally requires fewer resources and is thus the focus of this study. The connections identified in this study will form an inventory that educators can use to determine where and how sustainable development can be meaningfully integrated into existing chemical engineering curricula. 2 METHODOLOGY The Delphi methodology aims to find consensus on a topic between a group of experts by using iterative surveys (Belton et al., 2019). In this case, the topic is important connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development. Three stakeholder groups participated in this study, all from within the Australian chemical engineering community: chemical engineering educators, latestage chemical engineering students, and practising chemical engineers. By the final round of the survey, the participants per group were 8, 4 and 6, respectively, for a total of 18 participants (Approved Human Research Ethics Proposal 25662 at University of Melbourne). While participants were based in Australia, the results are highly likely to be relevant to chemical engineering education more broadly. This is because most chemical engineering degrees are structured around a similar set of ChE principles (Table 1), especially those degrees accredited by the Institution for Chemical Engineers. As seen in Fig. 1, this Delphi study has three major phases: list generation (Phase 1), importance rating (Phase 2), and inventory generation (Phase 3). Fig. 1: Flowchart of Delphi methodology used in this study (IQR = Interquartile Range) Phase 1 (List Generation) generated the list of connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development. This phase included a literature review, two preparatory focus groups (Bury et al., 2023) (Approved Human Research Ethics Proposal 23882 at University of Melbourne), and a qualitative Delphi survey. The list of connections was iteratively condensed to 96 unique connections, each assigned to at least one relevant chemical engineering principle (Table 1). Phase 2 (Importance Rating) encompassed the two quantitative Delphi surveys. Participants were invited to rate the importance of each connection on a Likert scale, from 0 (not important) to 4 (extremely important). Providing participants with aggregated data from previous survey rounds is common practice. This allows participants to compare their responses to the group average. The median and interquartile range (IQR) provide anonymous, aggregated data for central tendency and spread, respectively (Belton et al., 2019). Therefore, in the second quantitative survey round, participants were provided with the median ‘importance’ rating and the IQR for each connection and invited to consider these data points in their ratings. Table 1: List of 12 chemical engineering principles Control Design Fluid Mechanics Material and Energy Balances Reaction Engineering Safety Separations Systems Thinking Thermodynamics Transport Phenomena Unit Operations Modelling/ Simulation The inventory was generated after the surveys were completed (Phase 3). A connection needed a high median rating (signifying importance) and a low IQR (signifying consensus) to be included in the inventory, i.e., participants needed to agree that the connection was sufficiently important. Consequently, connections with a median ≥ 3 and an IQR ≤ 1 were included in the inventory (Von Der Gracht, 2012). 3 RESULTS 3.1 Tables Based on the inclusion criteria above, 66 out of 96 unique connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development were included in the inventory. A sample of the inventory is shown below (Table 1), showing 22 of the total 66 connections. The sample focuses on three of the twelve principles: Systems Thinking, Design and Separations. These three principles were selected for the sample to demonstrate the breadth of connections in the inventory and because these three principles also relate to other sustainable development principles. All three are core chemical engineering principles, while design is essential to all engineering disciplines, and systems thinking is a commonly accepted ESD competency (Rieckmann, 2012, 2017; Wiek et al., 2011). The sample includes the top-rated connections for each of the three principles, and connections which demonstrate the findings from an analysis of the inventory, which are discussed below. Table 2: Sample inventory of connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development focusing on three principles: Design, Separations and Systems Thinking (N=18). Connection Median IQR Principle Designing pathways to sustainably process new resources 4 0 D Sustainable Design/ Design for Sustainability Methodology 4 0 D Systems approach to circular economy 4 0 ST Valuing sustainability at beginning of design process 4 0 D Applying principles of systems thinking to problem solving 4 1 ST Combining chemical engineering principles (e.g., thermodynamics, material and energy balances) to solve sustainable development problems 4 1 ST Design for resilience 4 1 D Designing new, sustainable products (e.g., bio-based solvents, biocatalysts, refrigerants) 4 1 D Connections (cont.) Designing new, sustainable versions of existing processes 4 1 D Managing conflicting priorities in design (e.g., safety, sustainability, available technology, cost, efficiency, waste) 4 1 D, S, ST Process optimisation 4 1 D, S, ST Recycling materials/ resources (e.g., precious metals) 4 1 S Sustainability as a factor for design excellence 4 1 ST, D Waste hierarchy (avoid/ reduce, reuse, recycle, recover energy, treat, dispose) 4 1 ST Wastewater treatment (e.g., water recycling) 4 1 S Applying Material and Energy Balances on a systems level 3 1 ST Applying systems thinking to transport/ logistics to reduce impact on people 3 1 ST Design for decommissioning 3 1 D Energy integration 3 1 ST Life Cycle Assessments 3 1 ST Supply chain/ value chain management 3 1 ST Understanding broader context of sustainable development challenges 3 1 ST Note: “IQR” = Inter-Quartile Range, “D” = Design, “S” = Separations, “ST” = Systems Thinking Some Systems Thinking connections relate to all learners, such as “understanding the broader context of sustainable development challenges”. In contrast, others are much more relevant to chemical engineers, such as “energy integration” (a design approach where one process stream heats another, rather than relying on a heating utility such as steam). We can see a similar comparison in Design. “Designing for resilience” applies to all engineers, while “designing new, sustainable versions of existing processes” applies to chemical engineering. It should be noted that “Designing new, sustainable versions of existing processes” is only linked to Design in this sample inventory. However, process design also relies on many ChE principles, depending on the type of process being designed. This sample of the inventory also shows different types of connections, such as engineering tools (e.g., Life Cycle Assessments), new ways of thinking (e.g., design for decommissioning), applying principles in new contexts (e.g., applying material and energy balances on a systems level), and traditional chemical engineering activities (e.g., process optimisation). Based on this, the inventory begins to show how chemical engineering principles and concepts contribute to sustainable development in various ways. All 12 principles are present in the inventory, but Systems Thinking connections made up 30% of the inventory (20/66 connections), followed by Design (25%) (17/66), Material and Energy Balances (21%) (14/66), and Safety (20%) (13/66). While all chemical engineering principles are essential to the discipline, these four principles comprise 76% of the inventory (50/66 connections). This majority implies that sustainable development can be best integrated when teaching these four principles. 4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 4.1 Implementation This inventory is designed to be used by chemical engineering educators who have identified that sustainable development could or should be integrated into their subjects but do not have the time or resources to determine what form that integration may take. (Within the Australian context, “subjects” are the units of study that make up a semester, usually four subjects per semester). In this case, educators would first identify which chemical engineering principle(s) are the focus of that subject; for example, Subject A may look at separations. The inventory will show the connections for the Separations principle. The educator can then see which of those connections would work well with the content already existing in the curricula. In this example, “recycling materials/ resources (e.g., precious metals)” would work well: it provides potential case studies that can be used for lectures or tutorial questions, and it can start a discussion of the many different types of separation technologies. This process can be repeated for all subjects within a chemical engineering degree. The connections in the inventory can be applied from the first year through to the final year. Some connections could also be the focus of Continuing Professional Development, such as “Supply chain/ Value chain management”. 4.2 Limitations A Delphi study is inherently limited by the survey items rated by the participants (Belton et al., 2019). To overcome this limitations, Phase 1 (List Generation) was designed to collect data from a wide variety of sources: literature review, focus groups, and qualitative survey. By collecting connections from a wide variety of sources, the research design limited the possibility of important concepts being excluded from the set of connections rated by participants. A participant in the quantitative survey rounds noted that many of the connections focused on the technical aspect of socio-technical engineering practice, and the environmental dimension of sustainability. While the social dimension is briefly mentioned (e.g., “applying systems thinking to transport/ logistics to reduce impact on people”), we acknowledge that the list of connections does focus more on the technical and environmental connections. This is because the list of connections reflects the literature and broader discussions about chemical engineering and sustainable development: discussions that generally focus on the technical nature of engineering and the environmental dimension of sustainable development. The conversation, in both literature and practice, is slowly shifting to include the social dimension of socio-technical engineering practice and the social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. Further research and practice are needed to articulate the connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development's social and economic dimensions. 4.3 Conclusions We performed a Delphi study across three survey rounds, with a total of 18 participants. This Delphi survey rated the importance of connections between chemical engineering principles and sustainable development. Based on median and IQR data, 66 out of a possible 96 connections were included in the inventory of connections. The principles of Systems Thinking, Design, Material and Energy Balances, and Safety dominated the inventory. Further work will investigate how best to structure the inventory to construct a framework, thematic analysis of included connections, and why connections were included or excluded. Other engineering disciplines can use the Delphi methodology to construct a similar inventory of discipline-specific sustainable development knowledge. The inventory from this study can be used to integrate sustainable development into existing chemical engineering curricula meaningfully. This will enable future chemical engineers to contribute to sustainable societies through their engineering practice. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the participants for their time and experience given to this study. REFERENCES Allen, D. T., & Shonnard, D. R. (2012). Sustainability in chemical engineering education: Identifying a core body of knowledge. AIChE Journal, 58(8), 2296–2302. https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.13877 Anastas, P. T., & Warner, J. C. (2000). Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198506980.001.0001 Anastas, P. T., & Zimmerman, J. B. (2003). Design Through the 12 Principles of Green Engineering. Environmental Science & Technology, 37(5), 94A-101A. https://doi.org/10.1021/es032373g ASCE. (2019, June 1). Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge: Preparing the Future Civil Engineer, 3rd Edition. ProtoView. Gale Academic OneFile. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=edsgao&A N=edsgcl.587687402&site=eds-live&scope=site&custid=s2775460 Beagon, U., Kövesi, K., Tabas, B., Nørgaard, B., Lehtinen, R., Bowe, B., Gillet, C., & Spliid, C. M. (2022). Preparing engineering students for the challenges of the SDGs: What competences are required? European Journal of Engineering Education, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2022.2033955 Belton, I., MacDonald, A., Wright, G., & Hamlin, I. (2019). Improving the practical application of the Delphi method in group-based judgement: A six-step prescription for a well-founded and defensible process. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 147, 72–82. Bury, N., Shallcross, D., & Male, S. (2023). Connections between Chemical Engineering Principles and Sustainable Development – Engineer Focus Group. Demssie, Y. N., Wesselink, R., Biemans, H. J. A., & Mulder, M. (2019). Think outside the European box: Identifying sustainability competencies for a base of the pyramid context. Journal of Cleaner Production, 221, 828–838. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.02.255 Desha, C., Rowe, D., & Hargreaves, D. (2019). A review of progress and opportunities to foster development of sustainability-related competencies in engineering education. Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, 24(2), 61–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/22054952.2019.1696652 Enelund, M., Knutson Wedel, M., Lundqvist, U., & Malmqvist, J. (2013). Integration of education for sustainable development in the mechanical engineering curriculum. Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.7158/D12018.2013.19.1 Guerra, A. (2012). What are the common knowledge & competencies for Education for Sustainable Development and for Engineering Education for Sustainable Development? Engineering Education 2020: Meeting the Future, 9. Ortiz-Marcos, I., Breuker, V., Rodríguez-Rivero, R., Kjellgren, B., Dorel, F., Toffolon, M., Uribe, D., & Eccli, V. (2020). A Framework of Global Competence for Engineers: The Need for a Sustainable World. Sustainability, 12(22), 9568. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229568 Rieckmann, M. (2012). Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be fostered through university teaching and learning? Futures, 44(2), 127– 135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.09.005 Rieckmann, M. (2017). Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives (p. 68). United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. United Nations. (n.d.). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved February 24, 2025, from https://www.who.int/europe/about-us/our-work/sustainable-developmentgoals Von Der Gracht, H. A. (2012). Consensus measurement in Delphi studies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 79(8), 1525–1536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2012.04.013 Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., & Redman, C. L. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: A reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability Science, 6(2), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0132-6