A Supplementary Chemical Engineering Internship on Campus: Digital Twin of a 50 kt/y Ethyl Acetate Production Line

Understanding of actual large-scale plant operations and on-site internship is an integral component of engineering education. However, for chemical engineering undergraduates, the imperative of operational stability and safety in industrial settings often limits their exposure to real-world processes, especially the understanding and operation practices of nonsteady-state processes. To address this gap, we developed an integrated digital twin system. This system comprises a physical production line for ethyl acetate (50 kt annually capacity), a corresponding one-to-one 3D online model, and a fully functional distributed control system (DCS). The physical production line integrates the different unit operations in traditional chemical engineering experiments and uses the same equipment in plants, allowing students to operate a real industrial system on campus. The physical production line and the digital twin share the data and can be adjusted synchronously. This setup eliminates safety risks on campus by operating without hazardous chemicals, while the real operational data and physical models from plants ensure the authenticity of the operational feedback. Moreover, the digital twin system allows students to try non-steady-state operations and even experience the consequence of procedural errors without the risks of actual damage. Therefore, the supplementary on-campus chemical engineering internship can not only bridge the modular unit operations in traditional experiment courses with the on-site experiences in large-scale plants but also cultivate a comprehensive understanding of the complete chemical process flow and a system-level engineering perspective in upper-division undergraduates. This digital twin system provides a cost-effective on-campus internship, allowing students to combine theoretical learning with operation practices, which provides a supplement to future chemical engineering education.