Chemical Engineering Is The Branch Of: o o o o o o o
Chemical Engineering Is The Branch Of: o o o o o o o
Chemical Engineering Is The Branch Of: o o o o o o o
, chemistry and physics) and/or 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.[1] 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").
Contents
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1 Etymology 2 History o 2.1 New concepts and innovations o 2.2 Lag and environmental awareness o 2.3 Recent progress 3 Concepts o 3.1 Chemical reaction engineering o 3.2 Plant design o 3.3 Process design o 3.4 Transport phenomena 4 Applications and practice 5 Related fields and topics 6 See also 7 References 8 Bibliography
Etymology [edit]
George E. Davis
A 1996 British Journal for the History of Science article cites James F. Donnelly for mentioning a 1839 reference to chemical engineering in relation to the production of sulfuric acid.[2] In the same paper however, George E. Davis, an English consultant, was credited for having coined the term.[3] The History of Science in United States: An Encyclopedia puts this at around 1890.[4] "Chemical engineering", describing the use of mechanical equipment in the chemical industry, became common vocabulary in England after 1850.[5] By 1910, the profession, "chemical engineer", was already in common use in Britain and the United States.[6]
History [edit]
Main article: History of chemical engineering Chemical engineering emerged upon the development of unit operations, a fundamental concept of the discipline chemical engineering. Most authors agree that Davis invented unit operations if not substantially developed it.[7] He gave a series of lectures on unit operations at the Manchester Technical School (University of Manchester today) in 1887, considered to be one of the earliest such about chemical engineering.[8] Three years before Davis' lectures, Henry Edward Armstrong taught a degree course in chemical engineering at the City and Guilds of London Institute. 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.[4] Courses in chemical engineering offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, Owen's College in Manchester, England and University College London suffered under similar circumstances.[9]
Students inside an industrial chemistry laboratory at MIT Starting from 1888,[10] Lewis M. Norton 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."[4] Unit operations was introduced into the course by William Hultz Walker in 1905.[11] 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.[12] The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (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.[13] Meanwhile, promoting chemical engineering as a distinct science in Britain lead to the establishment of
the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) in 1922.[14] IChemE likewise helped make unit operations considered essential to the discipline. [15]
Concepts [edit]
Part of a series on
Chemical Engineering
History of Chemical Engineering
General Concepts
Chemical industry Chemical engineer Chemical process Unit operations Chemical kinetics Transport phenomena
Unit processes
Areas
Other
v t e
Chemical engineering involves the application of several principles. Key concepts are presented below.
Chemical engineers use computers to manage automated systems in plants. [35] Chemical engineers "develop economic ways of using materials and energy"[36] as opposed to chemists who are more interested in the basic composition of materials and synthesizing products from such[citation needed]. Chemical engineers use chemistry and engineering to turn raw materials into usable products, such as medicine, petrochemicals and plastics. They are also involved in waste management and research. Both applied and research facets make extensive use of computers.[35]
Operators in a chemical plant using an older analog control board, seen in Germany, 1986. A chemical engineer may be involved in industry or university research where they are tasked in designing and performing experiments to create new and better ways of production, controlling pollution, conserving resources and making these processes safer. They may be involved in designing and constructing plants as a project engineer. In this field, the chemical engineer uses their knowledge in selecting plant equipment and the optimum method of production to minimize costs and increase profitability. After its construction, they may help in upgrading its equipment. They may also be involved in its daily operations. [37]
Biochemical engineering Bioinformatics Biomedical engineering Biomolecular engineering Biotechnology Ceramics Chemical process modeling Chemical Technologist Chemical reactor Chemical weapons Cheminformatics Computational fluid dynamics Corrosion engineering Cost estimation Electrochemistry
Heat transfer Industrial gas Industrial catalysts Mass transfer Materials science Metallurgy Microfluidics Mineral processing Nanotechnology Natural environment Natural gas processing Nuclear reprocessing Oil exploration Oil refinery Pharmaceutical engineering
Environmental engineering Earthquake engineering Fluid dynamics Food engineering Fuel cell