Chemical engineering
Encyclopedia
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
that deals with physical science
Physical science
Physical science is an encompassing term for the branches of natural science and science that study non-living systems, in contrast to the life sciences...
(e.g., chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
), and life sciences (e.g., biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
and biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
) with mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, to the process of converting raw material
Material
Material is anything made of matter, constituted of one or more substances. Wood, cement, hydrogen, air and water are all examples of materials. Sometimes the term "material" is used more narrowly to refer to substances or components with certain physical properties that are used as inputs to...
s or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. In addition, modern chemical engineers are also concerned with pioneering valuable new materials and related techniques – which are often essential to related fields such as nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
, fuel cells and biomedical engineering
Biomedical engineering
Biomedical Engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology. This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve...
. Within chemical engineering, two broad subgroups include 1) design, manufacture, and operation of plants and machinery in industrial chemical and related processes ("chemical process engineers"); and 2) development of new or adapted substances for products ranging from foods and beverages to cosmetics to cleaners to pharmaceutical ingredients, among many other products ("chemical product engineers").
Etymology
A 1996 British Journal for the History of ScienceBritish Journal for the History of Science
The British Journal for the History of Science is an international academic journal published quarterly by Cambridge University Press in association with the British Society for the History of Science. It was founded under its present title in 1962 but was preceded by the Bulletin of the British...
article cites James F. Donnelly for mentioning a 1839 reference to chemical engineering in relation to the production of sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...
. In the same paper however, George E. Davis
George E. Davis
George Edward Davis is regarded as the founding father of the discipline of Chemical Engineering.Davis was born at Eton on 27 July 1850, the eldest son of George Davis, a bookseller. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a local bookbinder but he abandoned this trade after two years to...
, an English
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
consultant, was credited for having coined the term. The History of Science in United States: An Encyclopedia puts this at around 1880. "Chemical engineering", describing the use of mechanical equipment in the chemical industry, became common vocabulary in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
after 1850. By 1910, the profession, "chemical engineer", was already in common use in Britain and the United States.
History
Chemical engineering emerged upon the development of unit operations, a fundamental concept of the discipline. Most authors agree that Davis invented unit operations if not substantially developed it. He gave a series of lectures on unit operations at the Manchester Technical School (University of ManchesterUniversity of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
today) in 1887, considered to be one of the earliest such about chemical engineering. Three years before Davis' lectures, Henry Edward Armstrong
Henry Edward Armstrong
Henry Edward Armstrong FRS was an English chemist. Although Armstrong was active in many areas of scientific research, such as the chemistry of naphthalene derivatives, he is remembered today largely for his ideas and work on the teaching of science...
taught a degree course in chemical engineering at the City and Guilds of London Institute
City and Guilds of London Institute
The City and Guilds of London Institute is a leading United Kingdom vocational education organisation. City & Guilds offers more than 500 qualifications over the whole range of industry sectors through 8500 colleges and training providers in 81 countries worldwide...
. Armstrong's course "failed simply because its graduates ... were not especially attractive to employers." Employers of the time would have rather hired chemists and mechanical engineers. Courses in chemical engineering offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) in the United States, Owen's College in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
suffered under similar circumstances.
Starting from 1888, Lewis M. Norton
Lewis M. Norton
Lewis Norton was an American academic who introduced the first four-year undergraduate chemical engineering program while teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1888.-External links:...
taught at MIT the first chemical engineering course in the United States. Norton's course was contemporaneous and essentially similar with Armstrong's course. Both courses, however, simply merged chemistry and engineering subjects. "Its practitioners had difficulty convincing engineers that they were engineers and chemists that they were not simply chemists." Unit operations was introduced into the course by William Hultz Walker
William Hultz Walker
William Hultz Walker April 7, 1869 – July 9, 1934 was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., and graduated in 1890 at Penn State College and took his Ph.D. at Göttingen . In 1894 he accepted the chair of industrial chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where from 1908 he was also director of...
in 1905. By the early 1920s, unit operations became an important aspect of chemical engineering at MIT and other US universities, as well as at Imperial College London
Imperial College London
Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...
. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
The American Institute of Chemical Engineers is a professional organization for chemical engineers.AIChE was established in 1908 with the purpose of establishing chemical engineers as a profession independent from chemists and mechanical engineers.As of 2010, AIChE had over 40,000 members,...
(AIChE), established in 1908, played a key role in making chemical engineering considered an independent science, and unit operations central to chemical engineering. For instance, it defined chemical engineering to be a "science of itself, the basis of which is ... unit operations" in a 1922 report; and with which principle, it had published a list of academic institutions which offered "satisfactory" chemical engineering courses. Meanwhile, promoting chemical engineering as a distinct science in Britain lead to the establishment of the Institution of Chemical Engineers
Institution of Chemical Engineers
The Institution of Chemical Engineers is a global professional engineering institution with over 33,000 members in over 120 countries worldwide, founded in 1922, and awarded a Royal Charter in 1957.-Structure:...
(IChemE) in 1922. IChemE likewise helped make unit operations considered essential to the discipline.
New concepts and innovations
By the 1940s, it became clear that unit operations alone was insufficient in developing chemical reactorChemical reactor
In chemical engineering, chemical reactors are vessels designed to contain chemical reactions. The design of a chemical reactor deals with multiple aspects of chemical engineering. Chemical engineers design reactors to maximize net present value for the given reaction...
s. While the predominance of unit operations in chemical engineering courses in Britain and the United States continued until the 1960s, transport phenomena
Transport phenomena (engineering & physics)
In engineering and physics, the study of transport phenomena concerns the exchange of mass, energy, or momentum between observed and studied engineering systems. This subject is a fundamental component of disciplines involved with fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and mass transfer...
started to experience greater focus. Along with other novel concepts, such process systems engineering (PSE), a "second paradigm" was defined. Transport phenomena gave an analytical
Systems analysis
Systems analysis is the study of sets of interacting entities, including computer systems analysis. This field is closely related to requirements analysis or operations research...
approach to chemical engineering while PSE focused on its synthetic elements, such as control system
Control system
A control system is a device, or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or system.There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback or linear controls...
and process design. Developments in chemical engineering before and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
were mainly incited by the petrochemical industry, however, advances in other fields were made as well. Advancements in biochemical engineering
Biochemical engineering
Biochemical engineering is a branch of chemical engineering or biological engineering that mainly deals with the design and construction of unit processes that involve biological organisms or molecules, such as bioreactors...
in the 1940s, for example, found application in the pharmaceutical industry, and allowed for the mass production
Mass production
Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products, including and especially on assembly lines...
of various antibiotic
Antibiotic
An antibacterial is a compound or substance that kills or slows down the growth of bacteria.The term is often used synonymously with the term antibiotic; today, however, with increased knowledge of the causative agents of various infectious diseases, antibiotic has come to denote a broader range of...
s, including penicillin
Penicillin
Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They include penicillin G, procaine penicillin, benzathine penicillin, and penicillin V....
and streptomycin
Streptomycin
Streptomycin is an antibiotic drug, the first of a class of drugs called aminoglycosides to be discovered, and was the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis. It is derived from the actinobacterium Streptomyces griseus. Streptomycin is a bactericidal antibiotic. Streptomycin cannot be given...
. Meanwhile, progress in polymer science
Polymer science
Polymer science or macromolecular science is the subfield of materials science concerned with polymers, primarily synthetic polymers such as plastics...
in the 1950s paved way for the "age of plastics".
Lag and environmental awareness
The years after the 1950s are viewed to have lacked major chemical innovations. Additional uncertainty was presented by declining prices of energy and raw materials between 1950 and 1973. Concerns regarding the safety and environmental impact of large-scale chemical manufacturing facilities were also raised during which period. Silent SpringSilent Spring
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement....
, published in 1962, alerted its readers of the harmful effects of DDT
DDT
DDT is one of the most well-known synthetic insecticides. It is a chemical with a long, unique, and controversial history....
, a potent insecticide
Insecticide
An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...
. The 1974 Flixborough disaster
Flixborough disaster
The Flixborough disaster was an explosion at a chemical plant close to the village of Flixborough, England, on 1 June 1974. It killed 28 people and seriously injured 36.-Background:...
in the United Kingdom resulted in the death of 28, and damage of a chemical plant
Chemical plant
A chemical plant is an industrial process plant that manufactures chemicals, usually on a large scale. The general objective of a chemical plant is to create new material wealth via the chemical or biological transformation and or separation of materials. Chemical plants use special equipment,...
and three nearby villages. The 1984 Bhopal disaster
Bhopal disaster
The Bhopal disaster also known as Bhopal Gas Tragedy was a gas leak incident in India, considered one of the world's worst industrial catastrophes. It occurred on the night of December 2–3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
killed almost 4,000. These along with other incidents affected the reputation of the trade as industrial safety and environmental protection
Environmental protection
Environmental protection is a practice of protecting the environment, on individual, organizational or governmental level, for the benefit of the natural environment and humans. Due to the pressures of population and our technology the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently...
was given more focus. In response, the IChemE required safety to be part of every degree course that it accredited after 1982. By the 1970s, legislation and monitoring agencies were instituted in various countries, such as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and the United States.
Recent progress
Advancements in computer scienceComputer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
found applications designing and managing plants, simplifying calculations and drawings that previously have to be done manually. The completion of the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
is also seen as a major development, not only advancing chemical engineering but genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
and genomics
Genomics
Genomics is a discipline in genetics concerning the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis,...
as well. Chemical engineering principles were used to produce DNA sequences in large quantities. While the application of chemical engineering principles to these fields only began in the 1990s, Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
researchers see this as a trend towards biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
.
Concepts
Chemical engineering involves the application of several principles. Key concepts are presented below.Chemical reaction engineering
Chemical reactions engineering involves managing plant processes and conditions to ensure optimal plant operation. Chemical reaction engineers construct models for reactor analysis and design using laboratory data and physical parameters, such as chemical thermodynamicsChemical thermodynamics
Chemical thermodynamics is the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics...
, to solve problems and predict reactor performance.
Plant design
Chemical engineering design concerns the creation of plans and specification, and income projection of plants. Chemical engineers generate designs according to the clients needs. Design is limited by a number of factors, including funding, government regulations and safety standards. These constraints dictate a plant's choice of process, materials and equipment.Process design
A unit operation is a physical step in an individual chemical engineering process. Unit operations (such as crystallizationCrystallization
Crystallization is the process of formation of solid crystals precipitating from a solution, melt or more rarely deposited directly from a gas. Crystallization is also a chemical solid–liquid separation technique, in which mass transfer of a solute from the liquid solution to a pure solid...
, drying
Drying
Drying is a mass transfer process consisting of the removal of water or another solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid or liquid. This process is often used as a final production step before selling or packaging products. To be considered "dried", the final product must be solid, in the...
and evaporation
Evaporation
Evaporation is a type of vaporization of a liquid that occurs only on the surface of a liquid. The other type of vaporization is boiling, which, instead, occurs on the entire mass of the liquid....
) are used to prepare reactants, purifying and separating its products, recycling unspent reactants, and controlling energy transfer in reactors. On the other hand, a unit process is the chemical equivalent of a unit operation. Along with unit operations, unit processes constitute a process operation. Unit processes (such as nitration
Nitration
Nitration is a general chemical process for the introduction of a nitro group into a chemical compound. The dominant application of nitration is for the production of nitrobenzene, the precursor to methylene diphenyl diisocyanate...
and oxidation) involve the conversion of material by biochemical, thermochemical and other means. Chemical engineers responsible for these are called process engineers.
Transport phenomena
Transport phenomena occur frequently in industrial problems. These include fluid dynamicsFluid dynamics
In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
, heat transfer
Heat transfer
Heat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the exchange of thermal energy from one physical system to another. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as heat conduction, convection, thermal radiation, and phase-change transfer...
and mass transfer
Mass transfer
Mass transfer is the net movement of mass from one location, usually meaning a stream, phase, fraction or component, to another. Mass transfer occurs in many processes, such as absorption, evaporation, adsorption, drying, precipitation, membrane filtration, and distillation. Mass transfer is used...
, which mainly concern momentum transfer, energy transfer
Energy transfer
Energy transfer is the transfer of energy from one body to another.There are a few main ways that energy transfer occurs:*Radiant energy *Heat conduction*Convection*Electrical power transmission*Mechanical work...
and transport of chemical species
Chemical species
Chemical species are atoms, molecules, molecular fragments, ions, etc., being subjected to a chemical process or to a measurement. Generally, a chemical species can be defined as an ensemble of chemically identical molecular entities that can explore the same set of molecular energy levels on a...
respectively. Basic equations for describing the three transport phenomena in the macroscopic, microscopic and molecular levels are very similar. Thus, understanding transport phenomena requires thorough understanding of mathematics.
Applications and practice
Chemical engineerChemical engineer
In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is the profession in which one works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products, and deals with the design and operation of plants and equipment to perform such work...
s "develop economic ways of using materials and energy" as opposed to chemists who are more interested in the basic composition of materials and synthesizing products from such. Chemical engineers use chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and engineering to turn raw materials into usable products, such as medicine, petrochemicals and plastics. They are also involved in waste management
Waste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
and research. Both applied and research facets make extensive use of computers.
A chemical engineer may be involved in industry or university research where he or she is tasked in designing and performing experiments to create new and better ways of production, controlling pollution, conserving resources and making these processes safer. He/she may be involved in designing and constructing plants as a project engineer
Project engineer
A project engineer performs work that crosses the boundaries between engineering and project management, leading the technical workers who contribute to the building of structures or products. In some cases, the project engineer is the same as a project manager but in most cases these two...
. In this field, the chemical engineer uses his/her knowledge in selecting plant equipment and the optimum method of production to minimize costs and increase profitability. After its construction, he/she may help in upgrading its equipment. He/she may also be involved in its daily operations.
Related fields and topics
Today, the field of chemical engineering is a diverse one, covering areas from biotechnologyBiotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
and nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
to mineral processing
Mineral processing
In the field of extractive metallurgy, mineral processing, also known as mineral dressing or ore dressing, is the process of separating commercially valuable minerals from their ores.-History:...
.
- Biochemical engineeringBiochemical engineeringBiochemical engineering is a branch of chemical engineering or biological engineering that mainly deals with the design and construction of unit processes that involve biological organisms or molecules, such as bioreactors...
- BioinformaticsBioinformaticsBioinformatics is the application of computer science and information technology to the field of biology and medicine. Bioinformatics deals with algorithms, databases and information systems, web technologies, artificial intelligence and soft computing, information and computation theory, software...
- Biomedical engineeringBiomedical engineeringBiomedical Engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology. This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve...
- Biomolecular engineering
- BiotechnologyBiotechnologyBiotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
- CeramicCeramicA ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...
s - Chemical process modelingChemical process modelingChemical process modeling is a computer modeling technique used in chemical engineering process design. It typically involves using purpose-built software to define a system of interconnected components, which are then solved so that the steady-state or dynamic behavior of the system can be...
- Chemical TechnologistChemical TechnologistChemical technologists and technicians are workers who provide technical support or services in chemical-related fields. They may work under direct supervision or may work independently, depending on their specific position and duties. Their work environments differ widely, and include but are...
- Chemical reactorChemical reactorIn chemical engineering, chemical reactors are vessels designed to contain chemical reactions. The design of a chemical reactor deals with multiple aspects of chemical engineering. Chemical engineers design reactors to maximize net present value for the given reaction...
- Chemical weapons
- Computational fluid dynamicsComputational fluid dynamicsComputational fluid dynamics, usually abbreviated as CFD, is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with...
- Corrosion engineeringCorrosion engineeringCorrosion Engineering is the specialist discipline of applying scientific knowledge, natural laws and physical resources in order to design and implement materials, structures, devices, systems and procedures to manage the natural phenomenon known as corrosion. Corrosion engineering groups have...
- ElectrochemistryElectrochemistryElectrochemistry is a branch of chemistry that studies chemical reactions which take place in a solution at the interface of an electron conductor and an ionic conductor , and which involve electron transfer between the electrode and the electrolyte or species in solution.If a chemical reaction is...
- Environmental engineeringEnvironmental engineeringEnvironmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the natural environment , to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites...
- Earthquake engineeringEarthquake engineeringEarthquake engineering is the scientific field concerned with protecting society, the natural and the man-made environment from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels...
- Fluid dynamicsFluid dynamicsIn physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
- Food engineeringFood engineeringFood engineering is a multidisciplinary field of applied physical sciences which combines science, microbiology, and engineering education for food and related industries. Food engineering includes, but is not limited to, the application of agricultural engineering, mechanical engineering and...
- Fuel cellFuel cellA fuel cell is a device that converts the chemical energy from a fuel into electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen or another oxidizing agent. Hydrogen is the most common fuel, but hydrocarbons such as natural gas and alcohols like methanol are sometimes used...
- Heat transferHeat transferHeat transfer is a discipline of thermal engineering that concerns the exchange of thermal energy from one physical system to another. Heat transfer is classified into various mechanisms, such as heat conduction, convection, thermal radiation, and phase-change transfer...
- Industrial gasIndustrial gasIndustrial gas is a group of gases that are commercially manufactured and sold for uses in other applications. These gases are mainly used in an industrial processes, such as steelmaking, oil refining, medical applications, fertilizer, semiconductors, etc.,...
- Industrial catalystsIndustrial catalystsThe first time a catalyst was used in the industry was in 1746 by J. Roebuck in the manufacture of lead chamber sulfuric acid. Since then catalysts have been in used in a large portion of the chemical industry...
- Mass transferMass transferMass transfer is the net movement of mass from one location, usually meaning a stream, phase, fraction or component, to another. Mass transfer occurs in many processes, such as absorption, evaporation, adsorption, drying, precipitation, membrane filtration, and distillation. Mass transfer is used...
- Materials scienceMaterials scienceMaterials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
- MetallurgyMetallurgyMetallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...
- MicrofluidicsMicrofluidicsMicrofluidics deals with the behavior, precise control and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small, typically sub-millimeter, scale.Typically, micro means one of the following features:* small volumes...
- Mineral processingMineral processingIn the field of extractive metallurgy, mineral processing, also known as mineral dressing or ore dressing, is the process of separating commercially valuable minerals from their ores.-History:...
- NanotechnologyNanotechnologyNanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
- Natural environmentNatural environmentThe natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
- Natural gas processingNatural gas processingNatural-gas processing is a complex industrial process designed to clean raw natural gas by separating impurities and various non-methane hydrocarbons and fluids to produce what is known as pipeline quality dry natural gas.-Background:...
- Nuclear reprocessingNuclear reprocessingNuclear reprocessing technology was developed to chemically separate and recover fissionable plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. Reprocessing serves multiple purposes, whose relative importance has changed over time. Originally reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing...
- Oil explorationOil explorationHydrocarbon exploration is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for hydrocarbon deposits beneath the Earth's surface, such as oil and natural gas...
- Oil refineryOil refineryAn oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...
- Pharmaceutical engineeringPharmaceutical engineeringPharmaceutical Engineering is a branch of pharmaceutical science and technology that involves development and manufacturing of products, processes, and components in the pharmaceuticals industry . While developing pharmaceutical products involves many interrelated disciplines Pharmaceutical...
- Plastics engineeringPlastics engineeringPlastics engineering encompasses the processing, design, development, and manufacture of plastics products. A plastic is a polymeric material that is in a semi-liquid state, having the property of plasticity and exhibiting flow. The nature of plastic materials poses unique challenges to an engineer...
- PolymerPolymerA polymer is a large molecule composed of repeating structural units. These subunits are typically connected by covalent chemical bonds...
s - Process controlProcess controlProcess control is a statistics and engineering discipline that deals with architectures, mechanisms and algorithms for maintaining the output of a specific process within a desired range...
- Process design
- Process development
- Process Systems EngineeringProcess engineeringProcess engineering focuses on the design, operation, control, and optimization of chemical, physical, and biological processes through the aid of systematic computer-based methods...
- Process miniaturizationProcess miniaturization- Chemical Process Miniaturization :Chemical process miniaturization refers to a philosophical concept within the discipline of process design that challenges the notion of "economy of scale" or "bigger is better". In this context, process design refers to the discipline taught primarily to...
- Paper engineeringPaper engineeringFor other uses, see Paper foldingPaper engineering is a branch of engineering that deals with the usage of physical science and life sciences in conjunction with mathematics as applied to the converting of renewable raw materials into useful and valuable products...
- Safety engineeringSafety engineeringSafety engineering is an applied science strongly related to systems engineering / industrial engineering and the subset System Safety Engineering...
- Semiconductor device fabrication
- Separation processSeparation processIn chemistry and chemical engineering, a separation process, or simply a separation, is any mass transfer process used to convert a mixture of substances into two or more distinct product mixtures, at least one of which is enriched in one or more of the mixture's constituents. In some cases, a...
es (see also: separation of mixture)- Crystallization processes
- Distillation processesDistillationDistillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
- Membrane processesMembrane technologyThe membrane technology covers all process engineering measures for the transport of substances between two fractions with the help of permeable membranes...
- Textile engineering
- ThermodynamicsThermodynamicsThermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...
- Transport phenomenaTransport PhenomenaTransport Phenomena is the first textbook that is about transport phenomena. It is specifically designed for chemical engineering students...
- Unit operations
- Water technology
See also
- Chemical engineerChemical engineerIn the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is the profession in which one works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products, and deals with the design and operation of plants and equipment to perform such work...
- List of notable chemical engineers
- List of chemical engineering societies
- American Institute of Chemical EngineersAmerican Institute of Chemical EngineersThe American Institute of Chemical Engineers is a professional organization for chemical engineers.AIChE was established in 1908 with the purpose of establishing chemical engineers as a profession independent from chemists and mechanical engineers.As of 2010, AIChE had over 40,000 members,...
(AIChE)
- ChemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
and EngineeringEngineeringEngineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of... - Chemical Engineering and Polymer Science
- Institution of Chemical EngineersInstitution of Chemical EngineersThe Institution of Chemical Engineers is a global professional engineering institution with over 33,000 members in over 120 countries worldwide, founded in 1922, and awarded a Royal Charter in 1957.-Structure:...
(IChemE) - Contemporary Food Engineering
- Education for Chemical EngineersEducation for Chemical EngineersEducation for Chemical Engineers is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Elsevier on behalf of the Institution of Chemical Engineers. The journal's scope covers all aspects of chemical engineering education...
- English Engineering UnitsEnglish Engineering UnitsSome fields of engineering in the United States use a system of measurement of physical quantities known as the English Engineering Units. The system is based on English units of measure.-Definition:...
- Process design (chemical engineering)
- List of Chemical Process Simulators