Students of Our Department Address Real Challenges of Industrial Practice
On Tuesday, 20 January 2026, the 21st defences of Process Design Projects by second-year master’s students of the Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering programme took place in lecture hall BI at the Department of Chemical Engineering, UCT Prague.
The students presented the results of their work in 15-minute presentations, each followed by an equally long expert discussion. The programme traditionally concluded with a discussion focused on the teaching of the course and on cooperation between UCT Prague and industrial partners.
Defended Projects
This year’s edition included a total of seven process design projects, all carried out in cooperation with industrial partners:
- Casale Project – Design and safety-oriented instrumentation of an ammonia off-gas absorption system for urea production
- Spolchemie – Equilibria of reactor R-801
- Plzeňský Prazdroj – Optimization of heat consumption in the brewhouse at the Velké Popovice brewery
- Synthos Kralupy – Design of an alternative electrical energy storage system
- ORLEN Unipetrol RPA – Assessment of the distribution and impact of acidic compounds condensing during flue gas heat recovery
- Kovohutě Příbram – Cooling of a shaft furnace
- Lovochemie – Relocation of the SCR reactor from unit KD6 to KD5
Further details on individual projects are available in the Process Design Projects Proceedings.
Evaluation of the Year
The 2025/2026 edition was assessed as exceptionally high in quality. Several projects attracted significant interest from industrial partners:
- Spolchemie plans to continue the work on the project,
- Plzeňský Prazdroj invited the students to present their results directly to the company’s management,
- the solution developed for Lovochemie inspired the assignment of a follow-up research task.
These responses confirm both the high professional standard of the student teams and the practical relevance of the process design projects for industrial practice.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all representatives of the commissioning companies for their cooperation, expert consultations, and time devoted to the students, as well as the lecturers involved in teaching and supervising the projects.
Process Design Projects represent the final component of the course of the same name and have long been a cornerstone of the master’s programme at our department. In addition to in-depth technical solutions of complex chemical engineering problems, students also develop essential skills such as teamwork, role distribution, communication with industrial partners, and professional presentation of results.
Course guarantor:
F. J. Rejl
together with L. Valenz, J. Haidl, M. Vonka, T. Moucha, and T. Čmelíková
Photo: Adam Horák
