Creative thinking in chemical product and process design education

The purpose of this paper is to present some idea generation mapping methods in the context of product and process design teaching due to the important role that this methods can have in changing the usual thinking process and stimulating the creative thinking. Lifting the problem solving skills of the chemical engineering students by a small amount can have a huge effect on innovation and competitiveness. The role of idea mapping in chemical product and process design teaching is explored along with the discussion of the main characteristics of two different mapping methods, concept maps and mind maps. The distinctive characteristics are described along with an illustration and sample maps performed by a group of chemical engineering students showing the interest of ideas mapping in structuring the group thinking about a subject and allowing the group to gain new insights into the problem.