ChemE Cube

Author/ Adrian DiMarco

About the Competition

The competition takes place over the course of a year. Depending on the year’s theme, there are occasionally informational webinars for members to attend in January. From then until the end of March, teams work to create a pitch and unique value proposition in preparation for the Virtual Qualifying Presentation in early April. Soon after, approximately ten teams will be notified that their design has been chosen to compete in that year’s in-person competition in November.

This final component of the competition takes place in a different major city every year, and involves a minute-long ad, a poster, another pitch to investors, and a “head-to-head duel.”

ChemE Cube at Virginia Tech

While Fall 2022 was the second semester for ChemE Cube at Virginia Tech, it was the team’s first time competing in the National Conference. Their task was to design a water filtration device confined to one cubic foot. They accomplished this by using cellulose fiber media filtration, which is a filter consisting of cellulose fibers that vary in size. This layer filtered out large particles from any contaminated water. In addition, the team installed a chemical disinfectant to clear the water of any bacteria. This two-step filtration process earned them third place in the conference, and their end product was a device that could decontaminate 50 liters of water per day.

What is ChemE Cube?

ChemE Cube is an annual competition that tasks teams with designing and marketing a chemical plant that is one cubic foot in size. Each year, participants are given a prompt to design their cube around, create a minute-long advertisement, and write a Shark Tank-style pitch to give to investors. Cost and energy efficient water filtration and direct air capture are examples of previous prompts given to participants. Moreover, investors can sponsor teams to scale up their process if it is competitive enough with what’s on the market. Given its significance, we want to share more about the competition and how it helps the Hokies that participate.

Sign up for Virtual Qualifying Time Slot

Virtually Present your idea to ten judges

ChemE Timeline

Teams selected to compete ChemE Competition

How ChemE Cube helps its Members

Like other design teams, ChemE Cube gives students the opportunity to work as a team and get practical experience with concepts they learned in class. What sets it apart is that the structure of the team, as well as the competition itself, is nearly identical to what chemical engineers face in the industry. One portion of the team is more focused on the design component, while the other is focused on the business component, which is centered around creating a value proposition, promotional material, and a pitch for the team’s cube. Even though the design team is only available for chemical engineers, the members that focus on the business component of the competition have to develop interdisciplinary skills in order to outperform other teams. Members of the research team get a substantial amount of extra experience in developing and implementing an efficient process. In a way, teams are encouraged to act as a company rather than a design team.

Next Year’s Competition

To continue the theme of sustainability, next year’s competition will be focused on Carbon Capture. Teams will have the opportunity to develop technology that could be scaled up to combat the Earth’s rising temperatures. They will face the same challenges that research teams and companies face all around the world in the development of this branch of technology. For example, traditional carbon capture is expensive, and usually offers no way to profit off of the carbon that has been taken out of the air. Not to mention, the energy required to capture air pollution produces a similar amount of carbon. All of these issues have made carbon capture an especially difficult process to develop. The optimal cube will have to be extremely energy and cost efficient while also converting captured pollution into something of value.

Resources

Instagram - @chemecube_vt

Email - chemecubevt@gmail.com