At Mississippi State University (MSU) our Capstone Design courses consist of a series of two courses, Process Design and Plant Design. Process design introduces the students to design fundamentals and cost estimation techniques while Plant Design allows the student to utilize skills developed in their previous classes and is target to assist the students in applying these stills towards solving a single design problem.

During the spring term of 2007, the students were tasked with designing plant to product methanol using the partial oxidation of petroleum vacuum residue. The design problem was adapted from a previous 1989 AIChE student contest design problem. This problem was modified to reflect the increase in demand for methanol as a result of biodiesel production and the escalating methanol costs. While it was desired to have the students work with a biomass feed it was decided that the data base for vacuum residue. Mush of the data from the 1989 problem was incorporated into the assignment but the problem was vastly expanded to cover the semester time frame of the design. This presentation will discuss the group selection process, the technique of design from site selection to the generation of the cash flow diagram, and the post class assessment (after action report). Pitfalls of such a design course will also be presented.