Chemical Engineering is the
youngest of the four core Engineering disciplines, which include
Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering,
and Chemical Engineering. This alone can not define Chemical Engineering
however.
It has been said “Chemical Engineering is whatever Chemical Engineers
do!” What this means is that Chemical Engineering has the widest
scope of any of the engineering disciplines, and this scope is
constantly increasing as chemical engineers apply engineering
solutions to problems in other fields. A selection of fields of
interest to chemical engineers are:
• Chemical reaction engineering
•
Fluid dynamics and its application
to processing
•
Mass transfer and its application
to processing
•
Heat transfer and its application
to processing
•
Separation of mixtures of chemical
components
•
Control of process equipment
•
Thermodynamics of pure species
and mixtures
•
Process safety / hazards involved
with chemicals and processes
•
Biotechnology and bio-engineering
•
Environmental engineering
•
Materials engineering
•
Food process engineering
•
Nanoparticle technology
•The
aim of Chemical Engineers is to be able to understand, design,
build, and optimize complex industrial processes in a very wide
range of fields, using the basic principles of mathematics, physics,
chemistry, and other fields where necessary. This makes Chemical
Engineers the most versatile type of engineer, and allows them
to work in a very wide range of industries.
The attributes required in Chemical Engineers were stated in 1911
(very early in the history of the profession) by Milton C. Whitaker
(professor at Columbia University): "The chemical engineer
works in the organization, operation and management of existing
or proposed processes with a view to building up a successful
manufacturing industry... His fundamental training in chemistry,
physics, mathematics, etc., must be thorough and must be combined
with a natural engineering inclination and an acquired knowledge
of engineering methods and appliances." This shows great
insight considering that the profession was only introduced in
the 1880s, with the first technical course in chemical engineering
(then named “course X”) given by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, in 1888. At around the same time in Manchester, George
Davis presented a series of lectures on the subject “Chemical
Engineering”.
There is no doubt that the field of Chemical Engineering will
continue to evolve in the future, and that Chemical Engineers
will continue to be among the most highly regarded of professions.
Further information on Chemical
Engineering (written by Wayne Pafko) may be found on the internet
at http://www.pafko.com/history/index.html.
