Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that applies the physical sciences e.g., chemistry and physics and life sciences e.g. biology, microbiology and biochemistry together with mathematics and economics to processes that convert raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. In addition, modern chemical engineers are also concerned with pioneering valuable materials and related techniques which are often essential to related fields such as nanotechnology, fuel cells and biomedical engineering. Within chemical engineering, two broad sub categories include:
1) Design, manufacturing, and operation of plants and machinery in industrial chemical and related processes “chemical process engineers”.
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”.
Some chemical engineers make designs and invent new processes. Some construct instruments and facilities. Some plan and operate facilities. Chemical engineers have helped develop atomic science, polymers, paper, dyes, drugs, plastics, fertilizers, foods, petrochemicals… pretty much everything. They devise ways to make products from raw materials and ways to convert one material into another useful form. Chemical engineers can make processes more cost effective or more environmentally friendly or more efficient. As you can see, a chemical engineer can find a niche in any scientific or engineering field.
Advancements in computer science found applications designing and managing plants, simplifying calculations and drawings that previously had to be done manually. The completion of the Human Genome Project is also seen as a major development, not only advancing chemical engineering but genetic engineering and genomics 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.
Fact: Conventional polymers are currently facing a lot of issues related to the environment as well as their petroleum origin. Our research program aims to address these aspects by coming up with new grades of environment friendly polymers and building knowhow of making biodegradable polymers with customized features for specific applications. The main focus is on building polymerization technology through modeling, optimization, and lab. Scale implementation and then optimally linking with theology and processing with desired end use properties.
Pathologies of the cardiovascular system due to coagulation abnormalities are greatly influenced in their progression by the mechanics of vascular tissue, by the flow behavior of blood in blood vessels, and by the biochemistry of the reactions in the coagulation cascade and fibrinolysis. The thrust of our research is to better understand these pathologies by characterizing the rheological and biochemical variables in flow situations that present in the human vasculature and by identifying conditions that precipitate potentially life-threating events (like thrombo-embolisms and strokes). Towards this end, we use various tools like computational modeling of blood flow in the presence of clot formation analysis, experimental characterization of blood and clot theology, and constitutive modeling of blood, clot, and vessel walls.
A unit operation is a physical step in an individual chemical engineering process. Unit operations such as crystallization, drying and evaporation 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 and oxidation involve the conversion of material by biochemical, thermo chemical and other means. Chemical engineers responsible for these are called process engineers.
The Chemical Engineers differ from other engineers because they apply chemical knowledge in addition to other disciplines.