First of I hope you all remember that I am an entity in the blogging world. I know I've been gone for two weeks. Evidently a week off from school also means a week of from blogging. But anyway. So at the end of my last post I talked about my 'chemical engineers do it in packed beds' shirt (which coincidentally i'm wearing right now). I told you I'd give the first person tell me what it means would get a prize. Well only one person guessed and they are close enough so they get the prize. This is what my aunt-in-law Heidi guessed (Heidi does it feel weird to realized your technically Brett's aunt?)
So she got the gist of it. A packed bed is short for back bed reactor (at least where I spent all my time that is what it means!) And usually (at least in all my homework problems) the packing is a catalyst. So what chemical engineers do in packed beds is chemical reactions. So true to my word Heidi gets a prize. So what is a good prize? I don't know. So I decided on something I made myself and something I use all the time. A wooden spoon & spatula set. Sound random? It is. (My mom actually makes the wooden kitchen utensils but these ones, with her help, I made myself. They work great in nonstick pans, stirring cookies and I imagine for spanking children as well.) I'd hoped to make all the rest of you jealous of heidi by telling you what her prize was but alas most of you who read this are members of my family who either have a wooden spoon/spatula from my mom or I gave you one for christmas already. So Heidi, do you want your wooden spoon and spatula? if so email me at fitch.margaret@gmail.com with an address so I can ship them to you.
And the rest of you should be jealous just because!
Ok I am nowhere near being as smart and educated in the chemical engineering department as you are, so this is as far as I could understand that term: a packed bed is a hollow tube of some sort designed to hold packing material (or structured packing, depending on who is doing it, right?) to improve contact between two phases (commonly known as matter, I believe). Yeah, I feel smarter already. Of course, like I said before, nowhere even close to you, but I did learn something new today. Thank you for expanding my horizons! :)