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Recent technological developments have allowed virtual reality (VR) to become more affordable and readily accessible within the gaming community, inspiring its use in other fields, including education. The use of VR in chemical engineering education provides a means for contextualising learning through authentic and engaging scenarios, e.g. the touring and operation of a chemical plant. Given the speed of progress of the field technical terms relating to VR are being misused and there are cases of a general misunderstanding about VR in the literature. To make the field more understandable and to make the meaning behind technical language clear a new taxonomy was developed using a rigorous methodology. The new taxonomy was used to structure a VR/AR application survey and to evaluate relevant applications and research articles in chemical engineering as well as in other disciplines where VR/AR is successfully used. With the goal of testing whether VR can be used as a training tool in chemical engineering, several prototypes were developed with different technological implementation considerations based on the new taxonomy. These findings, together with the technological limitations of the other prototypes, suggested that it is feasible to further develop one of the prototypes. The prototype developed to be used as a training tool in chemical engineering is a VR version of a chemical plant set up in the premises of the University of Surrey. Three studies were performed to assess the use of this VR version of the chemical plant on the main three educational areas outlined in the taxonomy: teaching, training and the motivational aspects of chemical engineering education. The VR learning resource was well received by the students. The results of this study confirm that it is possible to produce a VR experience that students find helpful and achieve a set of educational goals. The study provides evidence that teaching and training in a virtual plant using VR can be as effective as an experience received in a real plant, paving the way for the use of VR as a means of eliminating logistical, safety and other concerns of teaching and training chemical engineers and students on the real chemical plant. The methodological approach outlined in this thesis in creating the educational content allowed for such outcomes to be measurable.

The chill-on-demand system is a technology designed to provide cooled products on demand, thereby avoiding any requirement for chilled storage. It uses the cooling effect provided by the endothermic desorption of carbon dioxide previously adsorbed onto a bed of activated carbon contained in an inner component of the self-chilling product. This has the potential to be applied to any type of product that needs to be cold at the point of consumption. The principles of life cycle engineering have been utilized to evaluate the overall environmental performance of one possible application of this technology: a self-chilling beverage can, with a steel outer can to contain the beverage and an inner aluminium can to contain the adsorbent. The primary aim of this research is to devise a way to ensure that the self-chilling can supplies the best cooling performance with minimal global environmental impact. First, the adsorption/desorption process as a means of cooling was investigated, together with its application to the specific case of carbon dioxide adsorbed on a bed of activated carbon obtained from coconut shells. A specific experimental activity was designed and supported by the implementation of a transient heat exchange model. Next, the potential environmental impacts of the product were evaluated by using a Life Cycle Assessment tool. The analysis considered all the life cycle stages of a self-chilling can: from the manufacture of each part of the beverage container, to its utilization and end-of-life management. The results, compared with those of a conventional beverage can, highlight the importance of using activated carbon derived from biomass and locating its production in countries with a low carbon-intensity electricity supply. More substantial environmental and technical improvements would depend on finding adsorbents with much larger capacity, and developing a system with very high rates of recovery and re-use.